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Days of Lawson and Lambert

What a wonderful place was the Sydney of the 'nineties! The sunshine was more mellow then, and the wattle blossom more golden or perhaps it was that they appeared so, seen through the eyes of youth. But however that may be, the foreshores of the harbour were undoubtedly more beautiful than they are to-day, for there was still bush where there are streets and houses now. Fine old homes, too, many of which have disappeared were still standing In spacious grounds which have long since been cut up into building blocks. Manly was then not even a village, and Watson's Bay, with its scrub and its flannel flowers, was a favourite picnicking ground. In Sydney itself steam trams puffed their way towards the pleasant suburb of Leichhardt, whilst Potts Point was a reserve for the rich and fashionable. Hansom cabs abounded, but young ladies who did not wish to be considered "fast" did not drive in them alone, any more than they sat upon the tops of horse-drawn omnibuses. There were no skyscrapers in those days, but visitors from New Zealand gazed with awe and admiration at the two cathedrals, at the Town Hall and the Post Office and at the Equitable Building in George-street. Lower down, towards the Quay, where the big steamers berthed, there existed a Chinatown, fearsome yet fascinating.

How delightful seemed King-street then, with Quong Tart's tearooms, and shops where flowers, unknown to dwellers in colder climates, were arranged with exquisite taste, or where strange fruits, such as guavas and mangoes, were plied beside familiar apples and pears! Living was unbelievably cheap in those days, and no peaches are so luscious now as those which street vendors sold for /2 a dozen. Truly, Sydney seemed a wonderful city to a girl straight from school in a small New Zealand town. And then the young men who were doing wonders with their pencils or their pens! Frank Mahony was drawing Australia as it was, and George Lambert had not yet gone off to Paris and London. Will Ogilvie was in New South Wales singing of Fair Girls and Gray Horses; Victor Daley was in the brief sunshine between the Dawn and the Dusk, and the Hidden Tide was sweeping Roderic Quinn on to the magic shores of poetry.

The women of New South Wales were enfranchised later than their sisters across the Tasman, but some of them, too, were doing wonderful things. Mary Gilmore was off to Paraguay, the dreams of Louise Mack were already in flower, and amongst the musicians there was Mme. Charbonnet-Kellermann. Upon the stage, Nellie Stewart, who died recently, enchanted her audiences before Florence Young and Violet Varley, who died so long ago. Then, in the early nineties there was Mr. Robert Brough and an altogether admirable company at the Criterion.

A Valued Volume

Another woman of singular ability and energy was actually running a newspaper at 402 George-street, and there, from that small and dingy office of the "Dawn," she published a small volume of "Short Stories In Verse and Prose," by her son, Henry Lawson. It contains the most beautiful of his tales, the most beautiful of all Australian tales, "The Drover's Wife." No one could have foreseen then how much sought after this volume was to become, and it was in the lost year of the nineties that Louisa Lawson gave a copy of the then unsold, to a New Zealander as she sailed for Europe from Sydney one burning February day. Books are lost and books are stolen every week, and every month or thereabouts books are borrowed, never to be seen again. But this volume, so small, so insubstantial in its paper cover, was to lead a charmed life. It was to go three times round the world, to lie safe in a Belgian attic during the war, whilst the library at Louvain went up in smoke and the Cloth Hall at Ypres was battered into dust, and finally to return to Sydney, whence it came.

It is nearly 40 years since Henry Lawson's "Short Stories" were issued by his mother, and each year since 1894 his fame has grown, outspreading the limits of his native land, and now the statue of this son of Australia stands upon Australian soil, beneath Australian trees. Henry Lawson himself is gone, and George Lambert is gone also, but their work remains. Yet is it incomplete if the living are content to remember the past alone, to honour only the dead. All created work is in itself -  or should be - creative; and these men of vision and achievement laid down a lighted torch for others to take up. The statesman, the farmer, the manufacturer, the labourer all these are necessary for the making of a nation, but it is the artists who crown it with a wreath of imperishable laurel in the sight of all the peoples.

The death is announced of Mrs. Campbell Praed, the novelist.

Mrs Praed was born in Queensland 1851, and is the daughter of Mr. T. L. Murray-Prior. She was educated mainly at Brisbane, and previous to her marriage saw a great deal of the social and political life of Queensland. On August 29, 1872, she married Arthur Campbell Bulkley Mackworth Praed, son of a banker in Fleet-street, and nephew of the poet, Winthrop Mackworth Praed. Mr. and Mrs. Praed lived at their station on Curtis Island, Queensland, until 1876, when they came to London. In 1880 she published her first novel, "An Australian Heroine," which has been followed in rapid succession by a number of works. many of which are entirely Australian in character: such as "Policy and Passion" (or "Longleat of Kooralbyn"), "Moloch," "The Head Station," "Affinities," "Australian Life," "Black and White," "Miss Jacobsen's Chance,"  "The Bond of Wedlock" (subsequently dramatised by the author, and produced by Mrs. Bernard Beere, under the name of the heroine, "Ariane "), "The Brother of the Shadow," "The Soul of Countess Adrian." Mrs. Praed has collaborated with Mr Justin M'Carthy, MP, in a series of novels dealing mainly with English political and social life, but some parts of which are distinctly Australian. These are "The Right Honourable,'' "The Ladies' Gallery," and "The Rival Princess." Mrs. Praed is generally recognised as the most brilliant and successful of Australian novelists. Her descriptions of the scenery of her native land are unsurpassed, and Australians cannot he blamed for thinking her work, which deals with the life, character, and scenes of Queensland, to be of a higher and more enduring kind than the descriptions of London ephemeral fashions, social, political, or religious, which she occasionally essays. Some few years ago Mrs. Praed paid a visit to the United States, and subsequently wrote a series of articles on her Transatlantic experiences in "Temple Bar."  She has frequently written for the magazines, English and American, and been a contributor to the series of short stones written by "Australians in London," from "Oak-Bough and Wattle Blossom" (1858) to "Cooee" (1891).

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 November 1901

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: It is interesting to reflect that Campbell Praed actually lived until 1935.  Her husband died in 1901, and it is possible that the SMH just got the two confused.

MR. CAMPBELL PRAED..

LONDON, Nov. 5.

The death is announced of Mr. Arthur Campbell Praed, formerly of Queensland.

Owing to the mutilation of a word in the telegraphic message, the announcement was yesterday interpreted as referring to Mrs.Campbell Praed.

ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA.

A writer in the "London Mercury" calls attention to the fact that the Australian writer finds himself placed on the horns of a dilemma. As a patriotic citizen, his first aim is to reach the hearts of his own countrymen through the medium of the Australian publisher. It is only natural that he should also yearn for wider publicity, and turn longing eyes towards the reading public of the Old World. Here arises the dilemma -- how to realise both laudable ambitions. He finds to his dismay that a book published in Australia rarely meets the eye of the English reader. What is the cause? Briefly, that the Australian novel which, under different conditions, might have been numbered among the "best sellers," remains unknown because Australian publishers do not advertise sufficiently in the British Press. With things Antipodean booming in England, and social success on the crest of the wave, the expression of the Australian mind is comparatively unknown. The "London Mercury" points out that the valuable outline of Australian literature by Netty Palmer [sic], published in Melbourne, which "ranks with Stopford Brooks' Primer of English Literature," is unknown in the Motherland. This, the first outline that has ever appeared, would prove a most valuable guide to English students, although the title might possibly provoke the inquiry, "Does an Australian literature exist?"

Of books and writers there are no end, but has Australia existed long enough to present to the world the special type which constitutes a national literature? There is nothing invidious in this question. When we consider the centuries of conflict, endeavour, achievement, of strife, between nations, and factions, and religions, of passionate thirst for particular ideals, of romantic happenings, which have been the inspiration of European literature, we are forced to realise that, great as has been the material progress and high endeavour of the Australian people, they cannot, in the short space of their history, look for inspiration from similar sources. Descriptive novels dealing with sectional interests -- bushranglng, pioneering, mining, shearing, convict days -- do not represent the nation as a whole. The birth of the soul of Australia must precede that of its literature. In the process of its evolution, the books which are "milestones on the road" should prove of deep interest to all English-speaking readers -- if, and it is a large if -- they could only got hold of them.

It is noteworthy that Mrs. Palmer takes the year 1900 for her starting point, excluding such descriptive writers as Marcus Clarke and Rolf Boldrewood. These were replaced by "the intimate and natural short story," of which Henry Lawson proved himself a master. She contends that the quality of the novel since 1920 is that of the short story -- "vigorous and abrupt without the suavity of the conventional novel." Among "the personal" books dealing with the life of adventure, she mentions Mrs. Gunn's "We of the Never Never." This delightful book is, happily, well-known in England, as are the novels by "Ada Cambridge," and a few tales of the "gold rush." The intense interest in the new outlet for the spirit of adventure felt in England in the early fifties caused the demand for any sort of story which told of kangaroos, and kookaburras, and the vicissitudes of the early settlers. The library of the British Museum possesses files of yellow local newspapers wherein are printed letters sent by proud parents which they have received from adventurous sons. These constitute a true record of the beginnings of Australian hlstory.

Mrs. Palmer finds the Bush Ballad well established at the close of the nineteenth century, "although the value of its work lay in its zest rather than in its style." A great deal of Australian verse has been produced by women, but "the best cradle song" has been written by a man, and "two men have produced the best child poem." On the other hand, "the best prose stories for children have been written by women." We regret Mrs. Palmer did not mention in her outline "The Education of Clothilde," which was published as a serial eighteen or twenty years ago, and, strange to say, has not yet appeared in book form.

It is regrettable that such a valuable guide as Mrs. Palmer's outline should not be in the hands of oversea readers. The British public, which is as ready to follow sympathetically the literary progress of Australia as to pay homage to its material development, fails for lack of opportunity. We look forward confidently to the day when books by Australian writers will be advertised side by side with those of the "best sellers" of Great Britain. A llttle more enterprise on the part of Australian publishers is all that is required.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 August 1926

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: the Nettie Palmer work referred to here is Modern Australian Literature, 1900-1923 which was published by Lothian in 1924, and reprinted - though I am not sure if it was in its entirety - in Nettie Palmer: Her Private Journal Fourteen Years, Poems, Reviews and Literary Essays published by UQP in 1988.

The Education of Clothilde, by Sydney Partrige and Cecil Warren, was serialised in The Leader newspaper beginning 3 November 1906.  It does not appear to have been reprinted.

Note: The first edition of C.J. Dennis's The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke was published in September 1915. Within a year it had passed through 9 editions and the numbers of copies in print was 51,000. In honour of reaching that mark, Dennis provided a new preface to the book. He refers to the original foreward written by Henry Lawson and published here last week.

Nearly a year ago Henry Lawson wrote in his preface to the first edition of these rhymes: "I think a man can best write a preface to his own book, provided he knows it is good." Now, and at the end of some twelve months of rather bewildering success, I have to confess that I do not know. But I do know that it is popular, and to write a preface to the fifty-first thousand of one's own book is rather a pleasant task; for it is good for a writer to know that his work has found appreciation in his own land, and even beyond.

But far more gratifying than any mere record of sales is the knowledge that has come to me of the universal kindliness of my fellows. The reviews that have appeared in the Australasian and British Press, the letters that have reached me from many places -- setting aside the compliments and the praise -- have proved the existence of a widespread sympathy that I had never suspected. It has strengthened a waning faith in the human-kindness of my brothers so that, indeed, I have gained far more than I have given, and my thanks are due twofold to those whose thanks I have received.

I confess that when this book was first published I was quite convinced that it would appeal only to a limited audience, and I shared Mr. Lawson's fear that those minds totally devoted to "boiling the cabbitch stalks or somethink" were many in the land, and would miss something of what I endeavoured to say. Happily we were both mistaken.

These letters of which I write have come from men and women of all grades of society, of all shades of political thought and of many religions. But the same impulse has prompted them all, and it is good for one's soul to know that such an impulse moves so universally. I created one "Sentimental Bloke" and he discovered his brothers everywhere he went.

Towards those English men of letters who have written to me or my publishers saying many complimentary things of my work I feel very grateful. Their numbers, their standing and their unanimity almost convince me that this preface should be written. But even the flattering invitation of so great a man as Mr. H. G. Wells, to come and work in an older land, does not entice me from the task I fondly believe to be mine in common with other writers of Australia. England has many writers: we in Australia have few, and there is big work before us.

But when I stop and read what I have written here the thought occurs to me that, even in this case, the man has not written a preface to his own book, and Mr. Lawson's advice is vain. For I have a picture before me of a somewhat younger man working in a small hut in the Australian bush, and dreaming dreams that he never hopes to realise-dreams of appreciation from his fellow countrymen and from great writers abroad whose works he devours and loves.

And I, the recipient of compliments from high places, of praise from many places, of publisher's reports about the book that bears my name - I, who write this preface, have a kindly feeling for that somewhat younger man writing and dreaming in his little bush hut; and I feel sorry for him because he is out of it. Later perhaps, when strenuous days are over, I shall go back and live with him and tell him about it, and find out what he thinks of it all - if I can find him ever again.

Melbourne, 1st September, 1916.

[26 March 1915]

Dear Den,

Of course I will you ole fool. Just got your letter. By a coincidence, that doesn't seem strange to me. I showed one of yours - the last ["Sentimental Bloke Gets Hitched"] to Geo Robertson, of A & R, one morning about a week ago, when he was in a bad temper. It tickled him immensely, and, incidentally, cleared up the whole atmosphere of the shop. (He's been hitched twice). Hadn't seen your work before because of "war troubles" and he hasn't been reading the "Bully" [Bulletin] for many months. Saw Bert Stevens this morning. Will write at length tomorrow.

I dips me lid.

Yours ever,

Henry Lawson

My young friend Dennis has honoured me with a request to write a preface to his book. I think a man can best write a preface to his own book, provided he knows it is good. Also if he knows it is bad.

The Sentimental Bloke, while running through the Bulletin, brightened up many dark days for me. He is more perfect than any alleged "larrikin" or Bottle-O character I have ever attempted to sketch, not even excepting my own beloved Benno. Take the first poem for instance, where the Sentimental Bloke gets the hump. How many men, in how many different parts of the world -- and of how many different languages -- have had the same feeling -- the longing for something better -- to be something better?

The exquisite humour of The Sentimental Bloke speaks for itself; but there's a danger that its brilliance may obscure the rest, especially for minds, of all stations, that, apart from sport and racing, are totally devoted to boiling

in this social "pickle found-ery" of ours.

Doreen stands for all good women, whether down in the smothering alleys or up in the frozen heights.

And so, having introduced the little woman (they all seem 'little" women), I "dips me lid" -- and stand aside.

HENRY LAWSON

SYDNEY, 1st September, 1915.

In Melbourne, on July 19, died, in her 83rd year, a remarkable Australian-Englishwoman - Mrs. George Cross - more widely known by the maiden name which she used in her literary writings - Ada Cambridge. Her husband, for many years an Anglican clergyman in Victoria, died fourteen years ago. Of her numerous family of children, a married daughter and a son survive, residing in Melbourne. One baby died in infancy, another in boyhood, another (she wrote) "in the prime of his young man-hood - which for me had altered the whole face of the world and of the future."

Ada Cambridge was born in the English fen country, at St. Germains, in Norfolk, in 1844. Her father had a small middle-class estate; her mother was a country doctor's daughter. She was educated by governesses at home, and gave early tokens of literary talent. Her family life was strictly religious; her first poetical essays, "Hymns of the Litany" and "Hymns on the Holy Communion," were devoted to religious themes. At the age of 25 she married G. F. Cross, an ordained clergyman of the Church of England, who was coming to labour in Australia - then considered "a country of blacks and bushrangers." With him she reached Melbourne in August, 1870, and during many years performed all the duties of a bush clergyman's wife in different country districts of Victoria.  

USEFUL TRAINING

Although her family was comparatively well to-do, Ada Cambridge had been trained to make all her own clothes as a girl; she made her own wedding gown. In her book entitled "Thirty Years in Australia," published 23 years ago - and still one of the best books of Australian reminiscence - she related how "housework has all along been the business of life; novels have been squeezed into the odd limes." "I made all my children's clothes, until the boys grew beyond their sailor suits, and the girl put her hair up."

A wonderful woman, indeed. Husband and family; births and deaths; a list of twenty published books - written, as she said, "most of them, to buy nice things for my babies; because there were always babies and never enough nice things for them"; and withal, an invalid for long, yet making her own dresses, curtains, and floor-coverings, and at first with her husband's assistance - her own furniture: breaking up her home seven times - until her husband was appointed canon in charge of Holy Trinity Church at Williamstown, Melbourne (1893 to 1912).

The Rev. George Cross also was no weakling. His wife records how, during part of his clerical country life, he seemed to live in the saddle, leaving it only to eat and sleep. "The following is the programme for a monthly Sunday in Wilcannia, where the breaking-in began. Up at 4 a.m. Breakfast at a station 25 miles distant. To morning service five miles (in an open shed, the congregation sitting on wheat stacks or what not). Dinner near by, and ride of twelve miles for afternoon service. Ride of seventeen miles home." (Total, 59 miles). "He was always fresh at the end of this tremendous day, or, at any rate, not more than pleasantly tired. The horse, too, which had carried him all day, though glad to reach its journey's end, was undistressed. It was by no means an exceptional day's work for an Australian horse."

"Only once," Mrs. Cross relates, "do I remember seeing George thoroughly knocked np." On this occasion he drove to a bush funeral 25 miles, rode 25 miles further, and 25 miles back, and then 17 miles home. "With temperature over 100deg., and the wind in the north, George was really tired out for once."

LITERARY LIFE

In 1875, Mrs. Cross commenced writing for "The Australasian" and other papers a series of novels of Australian life; most of which were subsequently published in book form in London. During many years, her prolific pen wrote a book a year. By 1890, both here and in England she was regarded as a popular novelist. The Australian element gave her books a pleasant novelty for English palates; yet, since she wrote as an Englishwoman, her work did not seem to English readers uncouth or foreign - as books more typically Australian seem often. For the serial rights of "A Marked Man" "The Australasian" paid Mrs. Cross £197. Other successful books were "The Three Miss Kings" and'"A Little Minx." These, with many more, that won temporary credit, have now gone down the hill of oblivion. Some of them can still be read with pleasure, but they have been supplanted by the never-ending new growth of popular fiction.

In 1908 Mr. Cross received news of an English legacy; and the wife who had left England with him in 1870, "a five-weeks bride," returned with him to her birthplace, "an old woman." This English journey, both sad and delightful, is chronicled in "The Retrospect" (1912). All Ada Cambridge's relatives, and most of her friends, had passed away; husband and wife soon returned to their home in Australia.

Four years later George Cross died, and in 1912 his widow travelled once more to Eng- land, intending to reside there. After some years she returned to her son and daughter in Melbourne. For a long time her writings had been widely spread; she had contributed much to English and American magazines. Gradually her circle of activity narrowed; and the woman who died in Melbourne last week had grown weary and frail: death came as a release from the trouble of long life.

The great crisis of that life came in 1887, when Ada Cambridge was 43 years old. During many years she felt that her passionate spirit had been thwarted and repressed. Though educated as a strict churchwoman, her questing striving mind was caught by the wave of 19th century doubt of theology, and she became in effect a Rationalist before Rationalism. Only the broadest church could have held her - and she had married a strict churchman. She closed her mouth; and, in the cant phrase, did her duty. But her mind could not be closed. For half her life she was at war with her environment.

She turned herself into a valiant clergyman's wife. She bore children; attended church, organised charity, presided over sewing meetings - she did her duty. She strangled her dreams, silenced her mind, and conformed. But her doubt and discontent persisted, with an anguish increased by the arduous and overdriven life she was often called upon to lead. From time to time she had written poems of personal unhappiness, intellectual septicism - some of them representing moods of married life; others, new beliefs gained in the process of thought and experience.

UNSPOKEN THOUGHTS

In 1886, at a period of physical instability and storm, Ada Cambridge gathered these poems together, and sent them to London for publication. Her small book of "Unspoken Thoughts" appeared next year. Perhaps 600 copies were printed; perhaps 50 copies came to the authoress in Australia. Her name did not appear on the title-page, and in the writing an effort had been made to suggest that the author was a man.

A few copies were circulated in Australia. Brunton Stephens in Brisbane received one, and its influence is seen in some of his own verses, and in those of two other Queensland writers to whom he lent the book. Henry Parkes in Sydney received one; and wrote in it:

But the shock to the Rev. George Cross was overwhelming. He learned that his wife had questioned Divine wisdom and doubted Eternal Hope. He read "A Wife's Protest" against the physical side of marriage: he read "An Answer" to pleading - "Thy love I am. Thy wife I cannot be." These poetical attitudes may have represented long-past feelings: but, to an Anglican clergyman in Victoria in the 'eighties, the fact that his faithful spouse, his valiant partner, could dream such thoughts, and write them, and publish them - even anonymously, and however included with other poetical works - was horrifying.

In the upshot. Ada Cambridge wrote to her publishers in London to destroy the edition of the book; and this was done. She herself, greatly troubled, came to Sydney for a time, and at Como, on July 28, 1887, wrote her beautiful sonnet, "Peace":

    PEACE

Ada Cambridge returned to Melbourne and her home; atonement was made; by-and-by she recovered health and spirits: life grew easier, in spite of griefs; she was able to write later that "a woman is really only free, and able to enjoy herself, at sixty." Long before she died her "Unspoken Thoughts" were buried and forgotten. Yet, thirty years later, she cherished an intellectual regret that "I was never able to let myself go."

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 July 1926

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: Although this essay implies that Cambridge's poetry collection, Unspoken Thoughts, is lost, you can read an e-book version [PDF format] of the book from SETIS - The University of Sydney's literature digitisation project.

The inclusion of Australia in the "Oxford"' series is welcome, and no better editor than Professor Walter Murdoch could have been found for the "Oxford Book of Australasian Verse." The name of our poets is legion, their fertility is enormous, and perhaps for that very reason Australian poetry shows to better effect in an anthology than in a library. Professor Murdoch has been wide in his range and judicious in his choice. The fact that there is not a "book" to one's credit does not stand in the way; some of the best work, indeed, is culled from fugitive publications by comparatively unknown men. One is glad to see, for instance, that "Australia Felix," by Mr. Dowell O'Reilly, has received a more permanent setting and a larger audience. And there are many other poems by young singers, who have already deserved their niche in our temple, although a less painstaking editor might have overlooked them. Professor Murdoch is as discriminating in his selection from those whose names are household words with us. But this anthology has one disability which, though he is not responsible for it, prevents it from being wholly representative of Australian poetry. The "inexorable necessities of copyright" have compelled him to omit many flowers from his garland. An anthology which contains nothing of the work of Daley, Brunton Stephens, Essex Evans, John Farrell, Barcroft Boake, Major Paterson, Mr. Henry Lawson, Mr. W. M. Ogilvie, and Miss Zora Cross, to name only a few, does not give to the world the best fruits of Australian poetry. (Oxford University Press.)

AUSTRALIAN NOVEL TO BE FILMED

OUR STAFF CORRESPONDENT.

NEW YORK. Dec 11 - A film based on "The Fortunes of Richard Mahony," by the Australian woman author Henry Handel Richardson (Mrs. I G. Robertson) will be made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, says Hedda Hopper. Hollywood columnist for the "New York Daily News."

Material will be taken from the novels "Australia Felix," "The Way Home," and "Ultima Thule," and made into one script.

Rumours are that Greer Garson and Gregory Peck are in line for the principal roles.

Professor J. Le Gay Brereton, whom "The Sydney Morning Herald" has wisely chosen as judge in connection with the prize for an ode on the opening of Parliament at Canberra, is one of the most modest of men. The last thing in the world that he seeks is publicity: and, for that very reason, he is apt to miss some of the honour that is his due. Though the professor's popularity is in no doubt among his associates, the measure of his achievement may sometimes be overlooked. He was born in Sydney and educated at the Sydney University, where he is now Professor of English. He early displayed a taste and gift for poetry, and, both in school and University days, carried off many prizes for English verse. His first book of rhyme, "The Song of Brotherhood," was written in his undergraduate days. In the Long Vacation of 1893-1894 he "humped his bluey" with the poet, Dowell O'Rellly, across Tasmania, and this resulted in "Landlopers," one of his well-known books of prose.

There is about Professor Brereton's work a chastity of thought and manner, and a simplicity that belongs to the best in English poetry. He never attempts the bizarre which often becomes the ridiculous in the end. His verse forms are always correct and the treatment generally the very happiest. In such a poem as "The Pine" there is something of exquisite grace, English in touch, yet so delicate in feeling as to be pure Greek.

Has "The Pale Portress" death ever been expressed in so finely touching a stanza as this:

Every form of verse, from ode to sonnet, from narrative verse to tender love lyric, has been handled by the poet with melody and feeling. His feeling for the right word makes him a model for the young student. The movement of his beautiful ode, "Epithalamium," is sustained with a spiritual magic controlling the rush of sound most skilfully. Often the dewiness and freshness of the Elizabethans, which are met with in his verse, come like the fragrance of newly-opening roses, or, since the poet is in essence our own and intimately Australian with the scent of rain-splashed gum-blossoms, the sunlight yellow and golden about them, and the bees eager for the honey.

There is much more of the bush man than the book man in the soul of this poet. It was in the memorable year 1894 that Professor Brereton met Henry Lawson through the introduction of Mary Gilmore. He remained a friend to Lawson till the time of the latter's death - a friend, and, I think, an influence. Because of the place he has attained in Australian letters the competition which the "Sydney Morning Herald" is now holding must go down to posterity with an added interest to all lovers of our poetry. He who wins the prize may be proud indeed, both on account of the occasion and the judge.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 March 1927

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Recently the Melbourne publishing house of Lothian, Limited, offered a prize for the best critical study of Australian literature since the beginning of the century. It was won by Mrs. Nettie Palmer, whose essay has now been printed under the title of "Modern Australian Literature." The term modern is, of course, relative. All Australian literature is technically modern, even the compositions of the illustrious Judge Barron Field and the candid Mr. Barrington. But Mrs. Palmer uses it to define the scope of her inquiry, which covers the period since Federation. There are a few inaccuracies in points of detail. Wrong dates, for example, are assigned to the volumes of plays by the late Adrian Consett Stephen and Mr. Arthur H. Adams. But these do not detract from the value of a comprehensive, discriminating, and sympathetic appreciation of our literary output during the twentieth century. "Concerning matters of taste, there can be no disputation," and, no doubt, many readers will disagree with not a few of her estimates. To some writers she would seem to do more than justice; to others, less. Of Mr. Bernard O'Dowd's "The Bush" we are told that, "taken in its breadth and its great depth, this is a poem so notable that it is hard to look for its fellows in English since 1900." This is a large statement. Notable the poem certainly is, but one would have said that in respect of the qualities predicated, Mr. Thomas Hardy's "Dynasts" ranks higher. Again, there are some rather curious omissions. Dr. L. H. Allen is mentioned only for his "Billy Bubbles," and Mr. J. H. M. Abbott, who has to his credit several capital novels of the old regime, only for his sketches of the South African War. And in the biographical and historical sections, surely Professor G. C. Henderson's "Life of Sir George Grey," and Professor G. Arnold Woods' "Discovery of Australia" deserve a place.

Mrs. Palmer's study makes one realise how greatly our literature has widened in range and increased in volume since the beginning of the century; and it is in the field of poetry that the development has been most striking. Our poetry has emancipated itself from old conventions, and freed itself from the fetters of parochialism in an amazing fashion. Australian poetry has passed through several phases. Originally it was imitative. Our singers saw their own land almost through alien eyes, and modelled themselves more or less successfully on English masters. Even in Kendall, the greatest, there are many echoes. Then they learned to look inward for inspiration, and there arose the "bush-school," racy of the soil, careless of form, rather self-conscious in their determinatlon to be Australian. The Pegasus they bestrode was a stockhorse; their muse the robust divinity who presided over the racecourse, the drovers' camp, and the shearing shed. It is the custom now to sneer at these bush balladlsts, and certainly their work had not that universality of appeal which is the touchstone of the truest poetry. But they served their purpose. They infused Australian poetry with fresh vigour and vitality. They marked an inevitable stage in our poetic growth, and they prepared the way for a new generation with a different impulse. Are we evolving a distinctively Australian literature? With all deference to those who contend that we are, the tendency seems, in poetry at any rate, to be in the opposite direction. Individual writers may seek to interpret the spirit of their land. Mr. Bernard O'Dowd may unfold to us the mystery and magic of the bush; Miss Dorothea Mackellar may address her passionate invocations to her country and draw unforgettable pictures of its beauties. But can it be said that our contemporary poetry as a whole has characteristics which distinguish it as Australian? Much of the most significant work that is being produced has no necessary relation to Australia at all. Many of our best writers know no country. One might search the poetry of Mr. Hugh McCrae, Mr. David McKee Wright, or Professor C J. Brennan - to take three instances at random - in vain for anything of which one could say: "This could only have been written by an Australian."

In her essay Mrs. Palmer observes that our literature "has had to struggle with a stubborn soil." This is a familiar complaint, and it is voiced again by Mr. Hector Dinning in a recent number of the "London Mercury." Mr. Dinning repeats the usual lament. He deplores the lack of encouragement given to local literature by Press and publishers. Chesterton, St John Ervine, and Belloc would starve here - as journalists. Australians show but a scanty appreciation for the work of their fellow-countrymen, save in its more mediocre forms. A taste for the homegrown article should be inculcated, and much in a similar strain. Yet Mr. Dinning himself supplies the explanation of the state of affairs which arouses his ire. Australia has a population of less than six millions. The class which, in older countries, provides an audience for the best in literature, art, and the drama is here so small that it can hardly be said to exist. The average man, whether in Australia or England, is frankly a Philistine. He "knows what he likes," and though his likes may make the elect shudder, he is quite unconcerned. He will read "The Sentimental Bloke" or the novels of Nat Gould with gusto, but the most polished essay, the most poignant lyric will leave him cold. He prefers a less rarified atmosphere. As population grows, the number of persons interested in the first rate will increase; while it remains small, literature will be at a disadvantage. The establishment of an Australian Academy of Letters has been advocated. It might help towards the improvement of standards, but the influence it could exert would be limited. The elevation of popular taste is a slow business, and literature is unresponsive to artificial stimuli. The ages of patronage in literature have never been the greatest. 

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 July 1924 (editorial)

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Mr. C. J. Dennis's Views.

Mr. C. J. Dennis, author of "The Sentimental Bloke," spoke yesterday about the prospects of film production being a financial success in Australia. He had just arrived from Melbourne, where the screen version of "The Sentimental Bloke" has been enjoying a singularly successful season.

The basic fact about production in Australia, he said, was that, if enough money had been spent on a film to make it a real success, the Australian market would not be big enough to recoup expenses. The film must be shown abroad. And to have an appeal in other countries it must bring to the screen something that was typically Australian, and therefore new to those other countries. It would be hopeless, for instance, for Australian producers to try and compete with Elstree by dealing with drawing-room comedy. They should look about them and select some characteristic feature of Australian life; then build their stories on that, instead of starting with a story and then trying to adorn it with local colour. The country teemed with subjects. He himself was busy on a scenario based on the timber industry, whose activities he had observed personally in Victoria. The Australian timber-getter was a person very different from the American lumberman, who had figured from time to time on the screen. The great point was that scenarios must be written as a result of personal observation. This was borne in upon him recently when, as literary adviser to the Efftee Film Company, he had examined a thousand scenarios that had been submitted by members of the public. Among the thousand less than 10 deserved a moment's consideration. This did not mean that the Australian writer, as a class, was of low mentality. To expect any standard in the writing of scenarios before there was a practical outlet for this sort of work would be unreasonable. Just now, tried and proved successes like "The Sentimental Bloke" and "On Our Selection" were being done for the screen. He hoped that very soon scenarios written specially for screen purposes would come into favour with producers.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 June 1932

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

It has been suggested that a shop should be established in London for the sale of books by Australian authors. The idea is opportune, and worthy of every support. The time has come for Australia to demonstrate to readers abroad that she has evolved a distinctive national literature. From the earliest days of settlement in this land there were some who sought to give written expression to their thoughts and experiences. At first these were necessarily of British birth, and for the most part they lacked the prescient imagination which might have foreseen the great Australia destined to be. The first of the native-born to achieve note was William Charles Wentworth. He won his garland in England by carrying off second prize for the Chancellor's poetical composition at Cambridge. His subject was "Australasia," and the future great constitution-framer, glimpsed with prophetic vision "A new Britannia in another world." The first absolutely Australian poet was Charles Harpur, born in Windsor, 1817. He possessed the divine instinct, but his work was unequal, and often trivial. He was the forerunner and exemplar of Henry Kendall, who "sat at his feet for long years," and in touching stanzas voiced his gratitude:

      With hands that falter as they offer.  

Kendall himself had a true lyrical gift, and was particularly adept in symbolising the varying aspects of nature in storm or shine. He had a strenuous and chequered life, suffering "the lot austere which waits upon the man of letters here," and this cast a gloom of depression and sadness over much of his output. Yet he bequeathed many sweet and graceful ballads, while his poem on the opening of the International Exhibition of 1870, with which he won the prize offered by the proprietors of this journal, and which first appeared in these columns, rises to epic grandeur. Largely contemporary with Kendall was Adam Lindsay Gordon. He remains the best known of that generation. For one who reads and treasures the alliterative lyrics of Kendall, several recite with enthusiasm Gordon's galloping "How We Beat the Favourite." To many Australians Gordon is the laureate. But he was of English birth and upbringing, and much of his work, capable and attractive though it be, is rather that of an Englishman domiciled, or exiled, in Australia, than of one who is Australian in every fibre. Marcus Clarke, too, made his mark with one im- mortal work, "For the Term of His Natural Life." Allowing for the exigencies of fiction, in which shadows are deepened, and incidents which in actuality were spread over several fields are concentrated into one, the book is of permanent value as giving a vivid and gripping picture of a condition of things happily long passed away. "Old Boomerang," also (the late J. R. Houlding) in the "Australian Adventures of Christopher Cockle," gave an amusing, yet withal graphic, description of the social life of the roaring "fifties," which should be saved from its threatened oblivion.

In more recent years a new and talented school has arisen which has frankly shaken off the British tradition, and looks at Australian subjects from purely Australian view-points. It shadows forth the "sun-lit plains extended," the rugged dividing ranges, the rushing rivers, the glorious exhilarating air of this vast land. Its favour- ite characters are not the lofty ones, but the strong brave pioneers who hewed their way through dense scrub, cleared the ground for smiling crops, drained swamps, sank shafts, won gold, fought fire and drought and flood, or drove great herds of cattle over a thousand miles and more of almost unexplored territory. A high place must be given to Henry Lawson, whose work is especially representative of this new generation. A. B. Paterson ("Banjo") is a worthy coadjutor, and has a lightness of touch which is complementary to the deeper tone discernible even in the humorous essays of Lawson. T. A. Browne ("Rolf Boldrewood") is likewise worthy of recognition. His novels, founded mainly on incidents of which he had personal knowledge, chronicle phases of Australian development which will never be exactly reproduced. "Robbery Under Arms" is already a classic. Arthur B. Davis ("Steele Rudd") has made thousands smile by his deft description of "Old Dad" and his numerous progeny and retinue, as they struggled to make a living on their successive selections, with interpolated experiences in city life. Both in prose and verse are many worthy of applause whose enumeration space forbids. Without prejudice to those of equal claims may be mentioned Victor Daly, E. J. Brady, the singer of the joys and sorrows of the hardy mariners of our seas, Brunton Stephens, whose "Convict Once" made him famous; George Essex Evans, of "The Secret Key," and the admirable publications in both prose and verse of Ethel Turner, Dorothea Mackellar, Ada Cambridge, Jennings Carmichael, Will Ogilvie, and John le Gay Brereton, not forgetting John Farrell, whose "How He Died" will find a place in every Australian anthology. Special commendation is due to C. J. Dennis, a master of every form of metrical technique, who has created those two impressive and unconventional characters, "The Sentimental Bloke" and "Ginger Mick." We Australians know these writers, who have laid the foundations of our literature; but to the people of Great Britain they are largely unknown. It is our duty to introduce them to readers abroad. That the British public is not insular in its preferences is shown by the remarkable vogue of American fiction, and there is every probability that a demand for Australian literature may also be created. The shop must be established. Whether it is to be at the cost of Government, or of private enterprise, whether alone or as a department of some well established business, has to be decided. But two things are indispensable: it must be staffed with intelligent Australian salesmen, and must carry full lines and advertising material. It will then develop into a meeting place for British and Australians alike, and many who know nothing of Australia will feel the lure of this great land, and through reading our books be inspired to come and dwell amongst us, and become Australians also.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 1920 (editorial)

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

At a time when so many new novels of Australian life are appearing, those of the older generation should not be forgotten. For some of them, apart from their intrinsic worth, are of real historic interest.  

South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland all have a woman novelist whose experiences date from the pioneering days of the colony -- Catherine Helen Spence, of Adelaide; Ada Cambridge, of Victoria; and Mrs. Campbell Praed, of Queensland. 

Miss C. H. Spence's first novel was published in 1856, and must have been one of the earliest Australian novels written. Her fame has been that of a political and social reformer, and few people would have suspected her of writing two-volume novels. It was her ambition, however, when young, to write a great book. In 1851 she sent her first attempt, "Clara Morison," to Smith, Elder, and Co., of London; and she records with evident pride that Mr. Williams, the reader of Smith, Elder, and Co., who had discovered Charlotte Bronte, read the book, and refused to publish it for the same reason that he had given Charlotte Bronte, that "she could write a better." However, in 1856 "Clara Morison" was published in London, and was pronounced by critics to be the best novel yet written In Australia - "a book deserving careful criticism and much praise."

In this book Miss Spence has drawn upon her own experiences in her description of the voyage to Adelaide and life in that city after she arrived there in 1839. There took place in 1851 an unprecedented rush of men to the Victorian goldfields, and she has attempted to describe in "Clara Morison" her experience of a depopulated province, when "there was no king in Israel, and every woman did what was right in her own sight." Clara Morison herself was not a new woman, however, and she was only too glad to marry one of the few men left behind - an attractive young English squatter.

Her second novel, "Tender and True," was accepted by Mr. Williams. Her third novel, "Mr. Hogarth's Will," made such an impression upon Mr. Edward Wilson, the well-known philanthropist, that it led him to alter his will. The story is that of a rich uncle who cruelly disinherited his two nieces. They were in consequence forced to earn their own living. Miss Spence intended to show that the uncle had done very wrong, but Mr. Wilson thought otherwise. He left the bulk of his fortune to Melbourne charities, which benefit substantially every year.

In her last novel, Miss Spence thought that she had at last achieved her ambition in creating "characters that stood out distinct and real." But she could find no publisher for it. She brought it to Sydney in 1900, but was assured "that the only novels worth publishing in Australia were sporting or political ones!"

Mrs. Campbell Praed, of the four novelists mentioned here, is the only genuine Australian. She was born in Queensland, where her father was a squatter and a member of Parliament, so that she had ample opportunity for studying the life she describes so well in her novels. Of these she has written at least twenty. It is said that the interest these books have aroused in England has had an important influence in gaining a bearing for Australian writers. "Longleat of Kooralbyn," her first novel, originally published in 1881 as "Policy and Passion," combines most of the author's strong points, which are "great dramatic force, interest of narrative, and a marked intensity in the sombre passages." Longleat is a squatter and politician in Queensland, a rugged, self-made man, coarse in his manners, but possessing a tender heart, which he cannot for all his desire show to his only daughter. She becomes estranged from him, chiefly owing to the superior upbringing and education which she has acquired in the large cities of the south. The story shows how the lack of love works upon Longleat's spirit, till at last it leads to tragedy for himself and others.

Mrs. Praed's descriptions of Australian scenery are very realistic. She expresses the feeling of fear with which the bush sometimes grips us, and also the feeling of beauty and peace. From her books we can picture the life of the pioneers in Queensland, their struggle to gain a hold upon the land, their isolation and the lack of congenial society in those far back regions. Her stories, though not always pleasant reading, contain characters that are life-like and vivid creations. In "Black and White," and "My Australian Girlhood," Mrs. Praed has given some account of her own life on her father's stations in Queensland; of the neighbouring families, from whom some of her characters seem to be drawn; and the blacks, bushrangers, and gentlemen sundowners with whom she came in contact.

If Mrs. Praed is the Australian novelist best known in England, Ada Cambridge is the best known in Australia. Many think she is entitled to the first place among Australian women novelists, by reason of the quality of her work and the varied distinctiveness of her stories.

"The Three Miss Kings" is perhaps her most populur novel - a pleasant story of every-day life in Melbourne in the early eighties.

Ada Cambridge's "delicate insight into the ways of girlhood and the loving tenderness with which they are presented," makes the novel popular, especially with women.   It is valuable, too, in that it keeps for us the atmosphere of early days. Ada Cambridge has written at least 12 novels, all dealing with Australian life. Her "Thirty Years in Australia" gives an account of her sojourn in Victoria from the time of her arrival in this country, a few months after her marriage, till the present day. Unlike many Englishwomen, she seems to have been able to adapt herself to the new ways and conditions of life in this country without difficulty, learning eventually to love and appreciate it.

There was one other woman who wrote an Australian novel about the year 1880. This was Madame Couvreur, or "Tasma," a journalist, who lived In Victoria for some time, and returned to England in 1879. "Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill" is perhaps the best novel yet written on Australia. One critic, writing of this book, says: "Instead of blinding us with local colouring, Tasma enables us to inhale the very atmosphere of the place, and thus give us the most perfect idea of the things, people, and surroundings she describes." The story is a simple one of a rough old Englishman, who has made his fortune in Australia, and is excessively proud of the fact. So anxious is he to show his manifold possessions to his only sister, whom he left a nursery governess in England, that he invites her and her whole family, including a well-born but idle husband, to pay him a visit. They arrive, and much appreciate the luxury and gaiety with which Uncle Piper surrounds them. The story describes the intermingling of the two families for good or ill.

There is a specially delightful picture of a little girl, who exerts a beneficent influence, upon all around her, and through whose agency the story ends up happily. Judging by the well-worn covers of the library copy of this book it is very popular, though there are people well read In English and American novels who have never even heard of it.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 January 1914

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: I have no idea who "E.B.H." might be.

Mr. Brennan then gives as an evidence of Agatha's capricious mind the closing lines of her narrative:

Mr. Brennan is rather harsh to Agatha, who admits in the following lines that she is not of the stuff of which heroines are made:

"Ashtaroth" is not unattactive to lovers of Gordon, for the theme is full of action and romance, and Thora's Song and several of the other poems are among the most beautiful and musical that the poet wrote. The main faults in the lyric are, I think, its occasionally faulty versification rather than its matter.

Mr. Brennan opens up attractive ground for discussion when he says, "It would be interesting to learn where Gordon obtained his inspiration for the poem - obviously it was obtained from literature and not from personal experience." May I suggest in reply to this statement that the inspiration carne from both of these sources - first from Gordon's own life, and secondly, though this will probably surprise many of your readers, from Longfellow's "Golden Legend," the plot and construction of this well-known poem being very like that of "Ashtaroth."  

Yours, &c.,

JOHN L. MENZIES.  

Melbourne.

First published in The Argus, 11 September 1937

In the library of the Yorick club Melbourne there is a slender dark green volume entitled

ASHTAROTH

A

Dramatic Lyric

On the fly-leaf there is written, no doubt in the hand of Adam Lindsay Gordon, the inscription "Presented to Yorick Club, with author's compliments." Anonymity is observed also in the printed line "By the author of Sea Spray and Smoke Drift."

The volume was published in 1867 with the imprint Melbourne: Clarson Massina and Co., printers and publishers; Sydney: Gibbs, Shallard and Co. 1867.

The Yorick Club was founded in 1868 in response to an invitation by Marcus Clarke to men interested in literature and art. Gordon' s death took place in 1870 so that the presentation of the volume was made sometime in the two years from 1868 to 1870. Gordon was a foundation member of the club and was known to some of the members who have died within recent years.

Apparently Gordon believed that he would be better known as the author of "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift" than as Adam Lindsay Gordon. Apart from its rarity, the volume of "Ashtaroth" is interesting in several ways, and is worth examination by students of Gordon chronology.

Most of us in our day drank of the volume to which Marcus Clarke wrote his memorable, if not generally acceptable, introduction, which included the reference to the "weird melancholy" of the Australian bush.

Nearly all commentators on Gordon's poems have spoken apologetically and even disparagingly of "Ashtaroth."   The memorial volume issued a few years ago does not include it, although "Thora's Song" is published as a separate poem.

The publication by the author in 1887 suggests that he had an artist's confidence in his own work. It was, moreover, a sustained effort. Gordon could not have "dashed it off" as poets are   believed to dash off their work in fine frenzy. It was at least a year after publication that he presented the copy to the Yorick Club. Such an interval would give ample time for the "sickness" which an author sometimes feels even for his best work.

The work as a whole is undoubtedly unattractive, but not more so than many of those written by authors of greater fame which have been given permanence in their collected poems. It is worth study, however, for the gems that are found in it. There is probably no more interesting or graphic writing than that which is contained in the moonlight elopement of Harold and Agatha from the pursuit of Hugo, as related by Agatha to the Mother Superior in the convent many years later. What heroine of modern picture show romance moreover could more accurately reflect the capricious mind than the closing lines of the narrative by Agatha -

It would be interesting to learn where Gordon obtained his inspiration for the poem. Obviously it was from literature and not from personal experience, nor is it likely that it was purely fanciful.

The characters are not such that he would have met either in his English or other experiences. Perhaps those who find satisfaction in attributing Gordon's best work to the influence of other minds may gain some fresh light from this neglected poem. Those who know Greek literature ever so slightly through the translations of Sir Gilbert Murray and others, will possibly be led to believe that Browning, Swinburne, and Gordon drew from the same spring. Theirs was an age of classicism and its echoes have a family resemblance.

First published in The Argus, 4 September 1937

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARGUS.

Sir, - As Mr. Moncure Conway has unwittingly done an injustice to the memory of the late Marcus Clarke, and one calculated to cause pain to his relatives and friends in the colonies, may I ask the favour of your publishing the enclosed letter which he has addressed to the Glasgow Herald, and forwarded to me by the last mail in the hope of its obtaining equal publicity here with the error to which he gave currency.-Yours, &c.,

HENRY G. TURNER. St. Kilda, May 12.

(To the Editor of the Glasgow Herald)

Sir, - I have just learned with dismay that in one of my letters to the Glasgow Herald, written mainly at sea, I have done grievous wrong to the good name of the ablest Australian author - the late Marcus Clarke. A friend of his now in London, who followed him to the grave, assures me that I have been grossly misled in stating that he took to gambling and killed himself. Marcus Clarke was never in any sense of the word a gambler, nor did he commit suicide. I can only conclude that in the story told me, or my understanding of it, the author in question was confused with another eminent Australian writer, who was his friend. The similarity, as I supposed it, of the two tragedies appeared phenomenal enough to be mentioned. It proves to be a delusion. Whatever may have been the origin of this blunder, there was certainly no evil intent behind it. For myself, I have never felt anything but grateful admiration for the author of that powerful romance, "His Natural Life." I regret that no redress of the wrong unwittingly done to his memory seems open to me, beyond an effort to overtake the story with this unreserved retractation of it as absolutely baseless, and expression of my sorrow at the pain it must have caused the family and fnends of the beloved and brilliant Australian - I am, &c,

MONCURE D. CONWAY.

Inglewood, Bedford-park, Turnham-green.

First published in The Argus, 14 May 1884

THEY HAVE FOSTERED A SPIRIT OF NATIONHOOD

It is to our poets and writers we look largely to create and stimulate a national sentiment. Most of us are indifferently patriotic when times are normal, and when crises arise the poet or the writer with vision and imagination can fan the flame of patriotism to white heat. That, however, is only spasmodic, and frequently becomes merely a passing phase.

Those writers who, when times are tranquil, can pen words which inspire a people and deepen its sense of nationhood, are the ones who attain enduring fame and find a lasting place in the literature of their native land.

The lure of the homeland overseas has influenced many of our Australian poets to the exclusion of work aimed at stimulating an Australian national spirit. There are some, however, who have not. The attempt probably began with William Charles Wentworth, born at Norfolk Island way back in 1793, who published a poem, "Australasia," as early as 1823, in which he implored "Celestial poesy" to

In his forecast, "The Dominion of Australia," written in 1877, James Brunton Stephens touches a fine chord:      

Henry Lawson, in "The Star of Australasia," foresaw, as Cuthbertson did, the strengthening of the spirit of nationhood through war:

A fitting conclusion to so brief an outline from Australia's writers, who have contributed to the national spirit, will be found in the lines from "The Bush," of Bernard O'Dowd:

First published in The Argus, 14 October 1944

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.

Sir,- It seems to me, considering some suggestive lines which appeared in the Herald, that the impression is that the name of Marcus Clarke was unduly used by the author of the libretto of "Moustique." The words of the songs of the first act are his, and in the second act, until the romance of Queen Venus, "In days of old," that is to say, two-thirds of the work is signed Marcus Clarke. The dialogue differs from the original, and this for a cause that I explained, namely, that Marcus Clarke died before he flnished the work, leaving in my hands the portion indicated above, and the plot of the last act. Coming back to Paris after my first travel in Australia, I gave charge to two French authors, MM. Pagol and E. de Monlieu, to terminate the libretto accordingly with the plot of the eminent deceased. This was done, and in 1883 "Moustique" was played in French at the Alcazar Royal, of Bruxelles. The critics on that occasion thought that the French libretto had an English character, and was written on the Gilbert and Sullivan models and in complete opposition to the Parisian conventional manner. The name of Marcus Clarke was pronounced, and the Paris Figaro. Gaulois, Evenement, whose notices were afterwards reproduced in succinct manner by the Melbourne newspapers, related the opinion of the Belgian and French press. I should be very much annoyed if the public could suppose that I made a free use of a name representing a talented Australian writer; on the contrary, I thought that the feeling and judging of the European press should receive a sanction in these colonies; that is to say, that the English character of the "libretto" should be more appreciated than the French one which is purely the copy of the idea of Marcus Clarke, if not literally word for word what he left in my possession. I regret that the English translation of the French part was badly done in this country. I acted only with the greatest desire to see the name of Marcus Clarke applauded with mine. I acknowledge that my deficiency in the English language did not permit me to see at first reading that this translation was made by hands not thoroughly acquainted with theatrical objects, if with French; and the hurried way in which my opera was produced did not allow me to correct or to diminish the roughness of the words.

I am proud of the success of my music, and I regret sincerely that, in my desire to gain a new victory for my regretted friend Marcus Clarke, I was left alone without advice, though I do not forget the help that some artists gave me in correcting themselves their parts, in making more scholarly the accents in their proper place.

You will accept this letter, Mr Editor, as a proof of my sincere desire to decline any responsibility about the writing of advertisements and any premeditation, when I was anixous to place the name of Marcus Clarke, as the true creator of the imaginary story that is played just now under the title of "Moustique."

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 July 1889

Note: this is the third of three pieces I've reprinted here over the past week regarding this production. The first of these can be found here, and the the second here. It's best they are read in order.

This was the piece I originally intended to reprint as I thought it provided a bit of an insight into one of Clarke's last works.  But, after re-reading it, I realised it couldn't stand on its own - hence the second piece, which is the review this letter comments on.  And then I realised I needed to provide a bit of context, hence the reprint last Wednesday of the initial notice of the play.

Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for Marcus Clarke. 

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

All things considered, Mons Henri Kowalski amd the others concerned in the production of "Moustique" can have no cause to complain of the reception accorded the new work last night. The first act went off amid enthusiastic applause, and it gave good promise for the later part of the work. The concluding two acts were not found so entirely pleasing as the first, and the interest and excitement gradually dwindled. There are two reasons for this weakness of the latter part of the opera. Mons. Kowalski appears to have been unable to cope with the difficulties of sustaining the power of his music, and the book, it must be confessed, is tame. The libretto is ascribed to the late Marcus Clarke, but it is difficult to believe that any literary man could have turned out writing which is at once deficient in point and grace, and verses which are next to impossible to sing. The words for the chorus are particularly trying, and some of the lyrics flow as smoothly as they should. That there is good work in the opera   cannot be denied, and the enterprise of the management in making way for a piece which is almost purely a local composition, should be encouraged. The music at any rate is invariably light and sparkling, partaking as it does of the Offenbachian school, and it contains some pleasing and catching compositions, albeit, there is in it an occasional reminiscence. The orchestration is not so able as it might be, but the music ripples along gaily from start to finish. One of the most tuneful airs in the piece is allotted to the representative of Queen Venus, the head of a number of ladies who live on an island in a state of single blessedness. This is a waltz song in the first act. It is extremely taking and pretty, and it was deservedly encored last night. Another charming song is that given by Moustique in this act, "I am the merry little Moustique," which was also vociferously re-demanded, thanks in no small degree to the pure voice and winning manner of Miss Flora Graupner, for the words of this song are enough to perplex any artist; they are about as hard to articulate as can well be imagined. In the finale to the first act there is a very graceful quintette and chorus. The opening chorus of the second act, "Work, work," is effective. It is immediaitely followed by the best number   which is rightly given to Moustique. This is a song in which the little hero describes life in Spain, Germany, and France. It is eminently bright and catching with its tambourine accompaniment and dance, and, magnificently rendered by Miss Graup-ner, it is likely to become popularr. The duet for the tenor and soprano in this act is exceedingly pretty. One of the best bits in the opera is in the final act. This is a quartette which parodies the Miserere scene from "II Trovatore," and there is a capital quintette, as well as a sparkling drinking song for Moustique.  It may be argued that the piece is not without its resemblances to Sullivan, Planquette, and   Cowen, but " Moustique," or at least the music of it, fulfils its purpose in being exhilirating and easily comprehended of the multitude.

The story is slight in the extreme, and,as already indicated, deals with the presence of a party of tourists on an island hitherto peopled only by damsels who are vowed to celibacy. Their resolution when put to the test is soon broken and Queen Venus and Captain Cook, Madame Manunis and Medisohn - whose names explain their characters - resolve to exchange a single life for that of prospective matrimonial bliss. The only one who is left out in the cold is Moustique, a young midshipman, after whom the opera is named. The piece, however, as it stands is rather like "Hamlet" minus the Prince of Denmark. There is little enough of Moustique in all conscience. The part, regarded either from a dramatic or musical standpoint, is an indifferent one. Moustique is banished from the stage during the finale to the first act, and he is seen only at fitfiul intervals throughout the opera. The other characters are much more in evidence, and the music of the part is not nearly so captivating as that of the other soprano part, Queen Venus.Tthis circumstance is all the more to be regretted, since Miss Flora Graupner, whose voice is pure, sweet, and soft, sings with delightful ease and felicity of expression. And, what is rare amongst ladies of the operatic stage, she acts uncommonly well into the bargain. She is neat, dapper, full of life, and she is never self-assertive. She sings the part to perfection, and she acts it with so winning and delicate an air that "Moustique" should find favour on account of the thorough excellence of this impersonation, if for nothing else. Miss Graupner has a beautiful voice, a pretty presence, and rare acting ability - a combination of good qualities which should ensure her a successful career. Miss Lilian Tree as Queen Venus, sings effectively, and she was greatly applauded last night, but she seemed a little strained, and her voice showed signs of over-exertion. Mr Henry Bracy sang, as he always does with ease and sweetness, and greatly strengthened the cast. The tenor part, however, is not so strong as might be desired. We could well afford to listen to Mr Bracy's pleasing voice and clear enunciation in one, or two more songs than those at present set down for him. The comic business is shared by Miss Clara Thompson and Mr John Forde,   both of whom are as amusing as may be. The cast of the principal characters, it will thus be seen, is not a large one, but it is more than competent. The opera went quite smoothly last night, when the conditions of such a production are taken into consideration. The hitches were trifling, and, such as they were, will doubtless be remedied at once. The scenery, by Mr. George Campbell, is pretty. The best scenes are those of the first and third acts - an island with a seascape, and the temple of Vesta respectively. The second act - the interior of a schoolroom - does not allow the scenic artist much opportunity. The male characters are attired in more or less modern costumes of all civilised nations, while the ladies in the first act wear classical dresses. The latter were not well draped last night. They should hang in graceful lines and not look so much like bundles. The dresses are right enough, but they require to be worn properly. Hovvever, as we have said, such matters as this will in all probability be speedily rectified. There was a large audience, the dress circle being particularly well-filled. There was the usual profusion of bouquets presented to the performers, and after the second act Mons. Kowalski was handed an address and a baton in addition to wreaths from various clubs. Such demonstrations of feeling are all very well, but to our   thinking, they are more in keeping at the end of the run of a piece than at its commencement.

Note: this is the second of three pieces I'm reprinting here over the next week regarding this production. The first of them can be read here.

Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for Marcus Clarke. 

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

This evening, at the Opera House, will be produced a comic opera in three acts, written by the late Marcus Clarke, and composed by Henri Kowalski. During the year 1880 the author and composer collaborated with an idea that their joint work should be fanciful and out of the common run. With this object in view "Moustique" was written and composed. Briefly told the plot is as follows:- A number of men, having become tired of the matrimonial thrall, resolve to emigrate and seek seclusion in some out of the way spot. Accordingly they set sail under the guidance of Captain Cook, jun., and eventually land upon an island which they imagine is uninhabited. Travelling with the party is the boy Moustique, who explores the island, and discovers that it is peopled solely by females. Consternation ensues among the tourists when they learn this intelligence; and their fears are further augmented upon hearing that any man found upon the island must suffer death before sunrise on the succeeding day.

Later on the women of the Virgin Isle appear on the scene, headed by their Queen Venus, and her Minister of Affairs. They discover the intruders, and vow to wreak vengeance upon them. Moustique, however, is spared on account of his youth. Finally love conquers the hearts of the manumitted maidens, and they succumb to Cupid's influence. Marriage is   reverted to, misogyny banishes, and it is to be hoped "all live happily for ever afterwards." The cast of the new piece contains the names of Miss Flora Graupner - in the title role - Miss Lillinn Tree as Venus, and Miss Clara Thompson, Mr. John Forde, Mr. William Stevens, and Mr Henry Bracy. Special interest is attached to this production, from the fact that it is the first representation of an important dramatic musical work by a celebrated author, whose stage writings were always graceful, and by a musician who is much esteemed in local circles.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July 1889

Note: this is the first of three pieces I'm reprinting here over the next week regarding this production. Hopefully all will become clear soon.

Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for Marcus Clarke. 

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

If he has not supplied a long-felt want, John O'Brien has at least seized a long-waiting opportunity in giving us a book of verse about Irish-Australians. In Around the Boree Log (Angus and Robertson) the Caseys and the Careys and the O'Neils go about upon their lawful occasions - their lovemaking and toiling, their prayers and arguments, very true to life, and much as they are going about these things to-day in every country town from Bungaree to Babinda. The truly erudite reviewer in whom the passion for esoteric art has become almost a complex, would not be in the least degree satisfied with Mr. O'Brien's verses. There are so many things that they are not. Compared with the Iliad, for example, they show a regrettable lack of epic afflatus. Of Shakespearean tragedy, of Byronic gloom, of lush Swinburnian verbiage, they bear no trace. Indeed, though appearing under an Irish name, they have not the most distant relationship to the work of, say, W. B. Yeats or David Mellee Wright or "A.E."

   Squatted down upon his heel
   And chewed a piece of bark.

will be deeply grateful to the author for reintroducing so many delightful friends.

And the verse which makes us acquainted with these jovial fellows is just as unpretentious as they are. It is in the direct Lawson-Paterson line mainly - unaffected talk about Australians, much as they would naturally talk about themselves. Yet, if his subject needs eloquence, the author can rise to it. But he in best at his simplest, in the pathos of "Making Home" and "Vale, Father Pat," the happy humor of "The Old Bush School" and "At Casey's After Church," or in the sheer rollickiing farce (true to life, all the same) of "Said Hanrahan" and "The Careys."

Possibiy, if Paterson had never strummed his Banjo, John O'Brien would never have sung to us as he does; that doubles our debt to Paterson. Yet there is much that is straigbt-out O'Brien in this book, much honest entertainment and pure fun. It is well worth while to read of "The Trimmin's on the Rosary," so continually on the increase that

   in fact, it got that way
That the Rosary was but trimmin's to the trimmin's, we would say;

or of the bishop who

Sat in lordly state and purple cap sublime
And galvanised the old bush church at Confirmation time,

and, in the course of his examination, demanded of the raw bush lad from Tangmalongaloo,

"Come, tell me why is Christmas Day 'the greatest in the year?"
But Christian knowledge wilts, alas, at Tangmalangaloo.

and

The ready answer bared a fact no bishop ever knew -
"It's the day before the races out at Tangmalangaloo."

It is all good fun; the kind of fun that calls up the happy chuckle rather than the loud laugh.

And the bush is there, enveloping its people with the bird-song and the flower-scent that the townsman Marcus Clarke could not discover. At times it is colorful, too

I've seen the paddocks all ablaze
   When spring in glory comes,
The purple hills of summer days,
   The autumn ochres through the gums.

Whatever it is not, this verse of John O'Brien's may well be admired for what it is - for its kindly humor, its gentle pathos, its honest pictures of one phase of country life and its good Australian sentiment. The book will find an army of readers all through Australia: but it is to be hoped, for the author's own sake, that his too-ardent admirers will not
hail him, upon his present performance, as a Great Poet. That he obviously does not pretend to be. For an honest rhymester, who seeks merely to entertain his public, to be hailed as a Great Poet is a vain and unprofitable thing; if it be persisted in it becomes a pathetic and an embarrassing thing, for which the helpless author is in no way to blame. As a book of healthy, happy verse, moderately well constructed and full of entertainment, Around the Boree Log should be judged, and commended. As such, it is a welcome addition to Australian literature.

First published in The Bulletin, 29 December 1921

If the shades of Banjo Patterson, Henry Lawson, Billy Hughes and many other noted men of the past were to return to Sydney to find something to read they would look for an old friend - Syd McCure.

They would be disappointed, for Sydney McCure no longer sits in his high-backed chair in Angus and Robertson's lending library, He has taken his chair home with him to Rose Bay after 62 years with the firm.

He has also taken a host of memories.

There's the memory of gentle, soft-eyed Henry Lawson.

"Henry . . . poor old Henry. He hardly ever looked at a book. I've no idea what he read," Mr. McCure told me as we sat on his sun porch the other day.

"He used to come into the library and stand there spouting poetry. I'd hustle him out, but I never heard him use a profane word.

"One day he came to me and said, 'Syd, we haven't had a row for a long time. This will never do.' But he never looked at a book. His poetry was all within him."

Billy Hughes, the Little Digger - what did he read?

"Oh, a good thriller always interested him. That and a humorous book. He loved P. G. Wodehouse."

It is strange to think of the doughty little Australian chuckling as he sat hunched over the doings - of Bertie Wooster and the inimitable Jeeves. It seems out of character.

Another frequent visitor was Banjo Paterson, but, like Lawson, he displayed little or no interest in the books on the shelves.

And so, as we sat drinking tea, the names rolled past in their ghostly parade.

A father of Federation, Sir Henry Parkes: "Would just browse among the books - showed no special preference."

Sir George Reid, State Premier: "Thrillers."

Admiral Sir Harry Rawson, State Governor: "Good novels and biographies."

Sir Julian Salomons, Judge: "Fiction, escape reading."

Leading members of the judiciary, apparently, always had a strong leaning towards thrillers.

And how has the public taste changed since 1892, when there was a school on the site of David Jones' main store, and Castlereagh Street consisted mainly of livery stables and horse bazaars?

For the better, apparently, factual and biographical books are enjoying greater demand than in the last 60 years, and their popularity is approaching that of fiction.

Syd McCure, at 75, and not looking much over 50, still takes a swim every day, drives his car and fully expects to fulfil a prophecy by Billy Hughes by living on lo live "to beat Methuselah."

First published in The Sun-Herald, 15 August 1954

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Sir,-In a colonial periodical, the Australian Journal, a tale appears in parts, entitled "His Natural Life," by Marcus Clarke, the scene of which is laid in Tasmania. That lucubration purports to be an historical novel, descriptive of unutterable horrors attending penal discipline when Tasmania was a penal colony. This "smart" writer, in pandering to that widely prevailing and debased taste of sensationalism, which battens on Newgate Calendar literature, has gone so far beyond the bounds of truth or probability, as to render his pages offensive to Tasmanians, and even inimical to the interests of the colony.

It is well known that our Victorian neighbours never lose an opportunity of pointing the finger of derision at this colony for its having been made the depot of England's criminals; and were it desirable that this ridiculous sentiment of scorn should be intensified and extended, no more fitting instrument could be found for the purpose than the writer in question.

Mr. Clarke's great aim in his weak story seems to be that of painting Tasmania, to within a very recent period, as a very Pandemonium of horrors, crime, and suffering, such as no other part of the globe ever bore; and what may give the matter the stamp of credence among some of the readers of the Australian Journal, is the fact of the writer having paid this colony a visit last year, ostensibly for the purpose of making notes from the Crown records of crime and punishment. With this object he visited Port Arthur, and it is for the Commandant of that station to say how far his horrifying descriptions agree with the records to which he may have had access.

It would appear from "His Natural Life" that the most dehumanising atrocities were of most common occurrence at Point Puer, and that "baby-convicts" were frequently driven to commit suicide in order to escape from the persecution of the fiends placed in charge of them. It is accepted as a truism that human nature is much the same all the world over, and, therefore, that petty tyranny and heartless brutality occasionally made their appearance at Port Arthur, is only to be expected, as they did in aforetime in America, and other of England's penal settlements. It is quite a different thing when, from the heads of departments down to the most petty constable, all are described as being very fiends incarnate.

It is fresh in the minds of your readers, how, not long since, our walls were covered with posters announcing the advent of this story, and this is the stuff the smart writer foists upon us. Without doubt, it will find excited admirers among your Pollys and Biddys - "them as has feelin's, 'motions, and senterments of Christyuns, although they didn't be born with silver spoons in their mouths" - while not a few tears may be shed with the broom in one hand and the Australian Journal in the other.

Tho following is an example from this remarkable tale:-" An unlucky accident had occurred at Point Puer that morning, however, and the place was in a suppressed ferment. A refractory little thief named Peter Brown, aged ten years, had jumped off the high rock and drowned himself in full view of the constables. These 'jumpings off' had become rather frequent lately, and Burgess was enraged at one happening on this particular day of all days. If he could by any possibility hare brought the corpse of poor little Peter Brown to life again, he would have soundly whipped him for his impertinence."

And again:

"Unfortunately, when Dora went away, Tommy and Billy put into execution a plan which they had carried in their poor little heads for some weeks.

"I can do it now,' said Tommy. 'I feel strong.'   " 'Will it hurt much, Tommy?' said Billy, who was not so courageous.

"'Not so much as a whipping.'

" 'I'm afraid ! Oh, Tom, it's so deep ! Don't leave me. Tom !'

"The bigger baby took his little handkerchief from his neck, and with it bound his left hand to his companion's right.

" 'Now I can't leave you.'

"'What was it the Lady that kissed us said, Tommy?'

" 'Lord have pity on them two fatherless children!' repeated Tommy.

" 'Let's say it, Tom.' "

"And so the two babies knelt down on the brink of the cliff, and, raising the bound hands together, looked up at the sky, and said, 'Lord have pity on us two fatherless children' ! And then they kissed each other, and 'did it."

Mr. Clarke's deplorably imperfect sense of the value of literary truth has been strikingly displayed on very many occasions, especially so in a geological controversy with myself in the columns of the Australasian last year, when his lamentable failing made him look painfully ridiculous in the eyes of those who know him, and are acquainted with geology. But because a man with a rage for writing is afflicted with an infirmity, are we on that account to tolerate in silence such a wholesale libel ? He may screen himself under the plea of fiction, but the attributes of historical fiction are considered to be derived from the actual truth.

Mr. Clarke came to Tasmania unannounced; sojourned unnoticed, and departed unmissed. No fetes were given, no triumphal arches were erected, and no banquets were spread to do him honour. Can the remembrance of this oversight have anything to do with the origin of his false statements and ungenerous reflections? There must indeed be a sad paucity of material for the makers of colonial books to work upon, when they must needs rake from the vaults of the past those things which belong exclusively to it, and which had far better be forgotten. Assuming even that the statements of this writer had about them a shadow of truth, I would ask what good can result from such harrowing details, save that of selfishness in increasing the sale of his books, and gratifying a debased appetite for sanguinary sensationalism ?

Possibly Mr. Clarke may think these remarks not a bad advertisement. If, however, the sale of a few extra copies of the publication will counterbalance the indignation that must be felt among Tasmanians for his pernicious fiction, he is quite welcome to such an addition to his purse.

Let our Sydney neighbours be warned lest this writer pay them a visit to make Notes. Let him not have access to Cockatoo Island unless it be under the auspices of the Crown, as most likely there would appear, as a sequel to "His Natural Life," "His Unnatural Death."

A little advice in conclusion. Let Mr. Clarke follow in the footsteps of those great fictionists he professes so much to admire - to forsake prostituting his pen by pandering to unwholesome and depraved tastes - to set an example of healthy, entertaining, and instructive colonial literature, and then he will have the satisfaction of knowing that he is not only useful in his generation, but that he stands a fair chance of leaving his mark on the scroll of Australian history.

Yours truly,

S. H. WINTLE,

Hobart Town,

April 15th, 1871.

First published in The Mercury, 19 April 1871

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: they don't write letters like this anymore.

Samuel Henry Wintel has an entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

HUMOUR OF THE OUTBACK

Creator of Dad, Mum, and Dave

"Steele Rudd" (Arthur Hoey Davis), selector, bushman, engineer, and surveyor, but best known as the author of "On Our Selection" and other books of the series, died yesterday in the Brisbane General Hospital, aged 67 years. His place in Australian literature was definite and no Australian writer attained a greater measure of popularity. He was bom at Drayton (Q.) in 1868. He was the son of Mr. Thomas Davis, of the Darling Downs. In his boyhood he worked on sheep and cattle stations. He went to Brisbane in 1886 to enter the Civil Service of the State as a clerk in the office of the sheriff. He was under-sheriff in 1902-3, and later was secretary of the Queensland Royal Commission which inquired into the Normanton-Cloncurry railway. His first stories of the bush were published in Brisbane newspapers, but soon he became a contributor to the Sydney "Bulletin."  It was the publication of "On Our Selection" that won him immediate popularity in Australia and in New Zealand. His rugged characters who toiled under a blazing sun, fighting drought and pests for a living from the soil - Dad, Mum and Dave - rough of speech, honest of purpose, and kindly of heart, lived as vividly as did   any character of Dickens. They lived through the pages of all books of the series, shouting the boisterous humour of the far outback to make tens of thousands laugh. "On Our Selection" was a stage success abroad and it was screened as both a silent and a sound picture.

Mr. Davis is survived by three sons and one daughter.

First published in The Argus, 12 October 1935

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

What the authorised function of a printers' devil is, we are not clearly informed. To wait about in a hopeful and yet unhelpful way, to drip with ink, to annoy - these are some of his habits. It may be humbly suggested, though, that his chief power is to cause misprints. How he does so it is not for an outsider to say; whether by clouding the printer's mind or by jerking the machine, who knows? The fact is, though, that misprints, some of them blatant, ugly, and obvious, others insidious and specious, do appear in the most surprising places. Who could possibly be responsible for them, if not the printer's own devil.  

The obvious kind of misprint, in which the type is somehow pied and the reader is suddenly confronted with a word like pxvtur, is harmless enough. One simply passes by on the other side. There is one standard and unpronounceable group of letters that is apt to appear at the end of a paragraph. Printers can tell you about it. It is caused be the printers' devil having things all his own way on the linotype for a few seconds: it is probably his swear word, and our failure to pronounce it is fortunate. There are other misprints of the same kind, ugly enough, but so quickly recognised that they also are harmless. Books published soon after the war were subject to them. Some French books published before the stabilisation of the franc were faulty enough to make the reader's reason totter at the end of every line, where the printer - or his devil - repeatedly printed words from the close of line two in the line before, and vice versa. No serious harm was done, though, for the reader was at least aware that something was the matter, and he could, in addition to the pleasure of reading the complex sentences of Marcel Proust, enjoy a little mental puzzle over the transposition of those words. Hardly fair to the aesthetic quality of Proust, you will say, but considered as a deed of a printers' devil, this disturbance was so slight that one can almost praise it. Only the crudest kind of devil will let you see that he is misleading you.

It is the disguised misprint that is dangerous. When the trail of the serpent is visible all over a landscape, we know where we are; but when the printers' devil has made a visitation upon a paragraph and left it, apparently, a smiling Eden still we are his prey. It is tardy that the inspired enemy does anything so crude as to insert a negative or to omit one: but his attentions often have that effect, yet leave the sentence flowing as naturally as if it had been so conceived by the writer. In a notebook I have collected a few of these particularly devastating specimens of the misprinter's subtle art. The specimens are not amusing: they have none of the racy charm possessed by the howler or the spoonerism: they are simply deplorable.

Bald or Bold?

Here is one of the very simplest. The writer of an article was regretting the limitations of the modern neat-and-complete flat, from which all the impedimenta of living seemed to be excluded, its inhabitants "apparently preferring this balder kind of existence". The printers' devil called it a "bolder" kind of existence, wiping out the whole argument by a single letter. Again, in a recent novel, came an innocent looking sentence in a passage that went towards building a certain character: the sentence dealt with "Boyd's enforced friendliness," not such a bad phrase for a certain type of human association, except that it was totally opposed to the rest of the description. Thinking it over - though for a reader to think it over is against the printers' devil's rules - you could only feel sure that what the author had written was "unforced friendliness." That was a misprint of great wiliness.

To bring about either of those effects the operator had to alter a letter, but he can manage by the alteration of something even less, a mere comma, or dash, or point. It is not enough, for his purpose, to leave the mark of punctuation right out, for the reader's eye instinctively puts one in - yes, even into a lawyer's document if it be it all intelligible. It is necessary for the imp to insert a false stop in some vital place. Even if he fails to bring about an entire collapse of the passage he may at least hope for an effect of confusion that will be ascribed wholly to the author. There is a famous passage in "Ultima Thule"   in which a comma does all the misprinting that it could hope to accomplish with its modest powers. The German baron, a naturalist and musician, who has come on a visit to Richard Mahony, in a bush township, is talking to the little son whom he has stirred by Schumann's music. Cuffy jumps about crying, 'I will say music, too, when I am big' ' but his friend answers:  

"Ja, ja, but so easy is it not to shake the music out of the sleeve!... Here is lying" - and the baron waved his arm all round him - "a great, new music hid. He who makes it, he will put into it the thousand feelings awoken in him by this emptiness and space, this desolation; with always the serene blue heaven above, and these pale, sad, so grotesque trees that weep and rave. He puts the golden wattle in it, when it blooms and reeks, and this melancholy bush, oh, so old, so old, and this silence as if death that nothing stirs. No, birdleins will sing in his musik."  

A Case for Controversy.

Well, there is the intrusive comma, between "No" and ' birdleins." The whole passage is controversial in theme, and when its argument is complicated by the presence of a misprint, you have all the material for a knotty passage that will engage the apparatus criticus of scholars with variorum editions in centuries to come. You see, the question is that of the silence of our bush. What remains most in our minds, the silence of our plains, on which trees have been destroyed and the birds banished, or the mountain forests and gullies of our vast coastal fringe, where birds sing, not only for a season as in Europe, but literally all the year round? Again, in this passage, is it the author speaking her own opinion, or is she content to utter the outlook of a European 50 years ago? So we wonder and discuss, but while the book is still fairly new we can simply leap over the misprint. The Baron meant that there would be "no birdleins" - may our grey harmonious thrush and all her ravishing cousins forgive him! Let this be put on record as the true reading, though the comma has been wrongly inserted in both the English edition and the reset American edition. So it becomes clear that printers' devils are not hampered in their movements: they can cross the Atlantic, they are as mobile as Puck.

There is again another kind of printers' devil very hard to endure: this is the self-righteous type. The alterations made by this evil genius are made with an ostentation of zeal for someone's welfare or reputation, the individual being probably either an author or a publisher. Thus a poet who uses the word "mystery," intending it for a dissyllable with a tremolo, will find it printed "myst'ry"; the printers' devil would assure him that it was thus rendered more "poetical." At times certain authors have had fixed ideas of spelling which have been at variance with the convictions of this all-too-learned, all-too-hidebound variety of hypercritical imp. All through Meredith's novels the e is retained in words like judgement: he liked it so, and he succeeded in bringing it off. But then Meredith was a publishers' reader, and he would know how to lord it over whole legions of printer's devils if necessary. Other authors are less successful. ln a recent essay Mr. Hilaire Belloe complains that it is almost impossible for an author to follow his own notions of spelling: "if you do you are in for lifelong war with the printers. For 40 years have I now attempted most firmly to fix and root the right phrase 'an historian' into the noblest pages of English but the bastard 'a historian' is still fighting for his miserable life, and may yet survive." One may demur, not to Mr. Belloc's facts of experience, but to his theology. The guilty person was hardly a printer: more likely a printers' devil had tampered with his modestly noblest English.

First published in The Argus, 4 October 1930

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

PARLIAMENTARY POETRY.

Sir - I was much amused last week to see that an hon. member of the House of Assembly enlivened the usual dulness of debate, by a speech of a very witty and highly poetical character. I am informed that the hon. member is not only the Tom Hood, but the Tom Moore of the Parliament, and moreover that he entertains the highest possible opinion of his own transcendant talents. I rejoice to see that he casts aside, with the boldness of true genius, those trammels, which unhappily have shackled so many other great poets, both of ancient and modern times, and with a lofty scorn scatters to the winds all rules as to the number of feet in the lines of his poetry. I speak of it as his, for it is evident that most of it is decidedly original, like the hon. member for the heights of Parnassus himself ; for instance, or, to speak more classically, "exempli gratia" --

"I hear a monster in the lobby roar,
Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we closely bar the door;
Or madly daring shall we let him in,
That we may have to put him out agin."

But I will not take up more of your space in eulogising the poetry of the hon. member. I have seen some of a similar style issued under the signature of " R. Venn, butcher, Currie-street west;" but no doubt Mr. Venn, who is a knowing one, pays the hon. member for Mount Parnassus to do it for him. There have also lately appeared some poetical advertisements from another well known tradesman, which from the style I judge must have emanated from the same source. I am anxious to know whether the poet is open to an engagement to supply a weekly poetical advertisement for a contingent reimbursement, to

AN ADELAIDE TAILOR

First published in The South Australian Advertiser, 18 October 1861

A newspaper correspondent recently made the rather rash statement that the present writer might be chosen in place of Mr Rudyard Kilping to write an ode for Victoria's War Memorial Shrine. As an alternative, the correspondent made the still rasher suggestion that, were a competition to be made of it, Mr Kipling might come off second best.

This is a case in which I think I might reasonably cry, "Save me from my friends!" without any suggestion of false modesty.

The thing has troubled me so persistently since the question was mooted (I disapprove or people who moot things) and my mind has been so obsessed by the mere thought of such a terrible ordeal that I actually dreamed the other night that the contest had been arranged, and was in the course of happening - not, as might be thought, at our various study desks, but in a queer sort of boxing ring with highbrow seconds in either corner and a referee whom the somewhat crude spectators referred to as "Bill," but who bore a remarkable resemblance to William Shakespeare.

At the first sound of the gong, Rud. Kipling hopped in and socked me on the jaw with a sonnet. I tried to counter with a dirty elegiac stanza, but he came in with his left and landed me again with an Alexandrine verse to the heart that fairly rocked me on my metric feet.

For obvious reason, I don't remember much more of that round, nor of the next; for he launched his sudden attack again and got me a beauty with a piece of anapestic verse just above the belt. I tried to reply rather weakly, with a hendecasyllabic rhyming; but the man suddenly became a whirlwind, got in several quick dactylic cadences, a couple of hexametres, and finally sent me down for the count with an octosyllabic jolt to the jaw.

Ruddo Kipling had my measure from the very start; and, when eventually I awoke, I decided that, if the contest ever did really happen, I would go forearmed to the fray with a rhyming dictionary in one glove and a thesaurus in the other.

First published in The Herald, 2 January 1934

The example set by Mr. William Hatfield and Mrs. AEneas Gunn in assisting the appeal for £1,800 to defray the cost of piping to provide a permanent water supply for the Hermannsburg Mission in Central Australia has evoked a generous response from other Melbourne authors, who have presented autographed copies of their books for sale. Mr. Tarlton Rayment has presented a dozen inscribed copies of his book, "The Prince of the Totem." Mr. R. W. E. Wilmot has presented a dozen inscribed copies of his book, "Defending the Ashes," and Mr. Erle Cox has presented a dozen inscribed copies of "Out of the Silence," the novel which first appeared in serial form in "The Argus." Mr. Edgar Holt has presented six inscribed copies of his book of poems, "Lilacs Out of the Dead Land." Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. Ltd. have presented, on behalf of Mr. Charles H. Holmes, six signed copies of his "We Find Australia."

All these books, except Mr. Holmes's,  which will be available on Monday, will be on sale at Robertson and Mullens.   Those presented by Messrs. Rayment and Wilmot will be sold at 10/ each. Mr. Holmes's book, signed by the nuthor, will be available on payment of 14/6. The novel by Mr. Erle Cox will be sold at 6/. Mr. Holt has authorised the sale of his poems at 7/6 a copy, and he will present six more copies when these have been sold. Typical of the inscriptions placed on their books by the authors is that of Mr. Tarlton Rayment, who has written, "The brown birralilees cried gullee, gullee (water, water), and the white man answered by sending the stream of life through a water-pipe at Koporilja."

Within an hour of the opening of Robertson and Mullens yesterday 12 more copies of Mr. William Hatfield's novel, "The Desert Saga"; 12 copies of "The Little Black Princess," signed by the authoress, Mrs. AEneas Gunn, and presented by Robertson and Mullens; and six copies of "We of the Never Never," presented by Mrs. AEneas Gunn, were sold. Several copies of Mrs. Gunn's books have been taken to the shop to be autographed at a cost of 5/.

Is Henry Kingsley read now? Not much, perhaps; yet there are many middle aged readers who recall his books with pleasure, and for all Australians he should have particular interest as a resident in the pioneer days and as the writer of two good novels treating of that period. These are "Recollections of "Geoffrey Hamlyn" and "The Hillyars and the Burtons."

"I took your advice and reread 'Geoffrey Hamlyn,'" says a letter received from England recently by Mr. Tom Roberts. "I originally read it when I was 15 years old, and I still had a recollection of some passages in it. Were you aware when you advised me to read this book of Henry Kingsley's that this author (who did so much for Australia) lived for over 12 years and died and was buried in this little old village of Cuckfield? I sought out his grave in the parish churchyard. A small wooden cross of oak, with his name hardly discernible, marks his last resting-place, and in a very short time this will have mouldered away, unless replaced by a more permanent monument. What an opportunity for Melburnians to do something in the way of homage to the memory of the first writer of fiction weaving a spell of romance around early Australian days.

"His former residence is much the same as when he lived in it, and is, curiously, next to the village library, built of recent years. The present residents allowed me to look over it, and there are a number of small panels around the sitting-room fireplace which he painted. They are well preserved."

A GIFTED FAMILY.

The Kingsleys were a remarkable family. Henry was the youngest of three sons of the Rev. Charles Kingsley. The eldest, Charles, a clergyman, was the author of 'Westward' Ho," "Alton Locke," "Hereward the Wake," and other favourite novels and miscellaneous writings. The second, George Henry, a doctor of medicine, was joint author with the Earl of Pembroke of "South Sea Bubbles," an early book on Pacific Island voyaging. The daughter of Charles is "Lucas Malet," a leading novelist, and the daughter of George was Mary Kingsley, who wrote on her travels in West Africa. Henry Kingsley was born at Barnack, Northamptonshire, on January 2, 1830. He was educated at King's College, London, and at Worcester College, Oxford. Much was being heard in England at that time of the wonders of the goldfields, and with some fellow students Kingsley sailed for Australia in 1853. Though he was in this country for five years, he was one of the visitors who did not make a fortune, whether from gold-seeking or from other activities; yet experience is always artistic gain to the born novelist, and this was shown in Kingsley's case after he had returned to England.

"Desultory and unromantic employment" is one description of the way in which his Australian years passed. For a time he was in the mounted police, and there is a story that his term was brought to an end by his refusing to attend an execution. But Kingsley did not care to talk about that period. One of the scenes in "Geoffrey Hamlyn" is a description of visit to a condemned cell by one who had been a friend of the fated bushranger in their youth in England. Tragedy and comedy, quiet humour, and quiet pathos, all have place in Henry Kingsley's books.

VIVID PAGES.

"Geoffrey Hamlyn," published on his return to England, was his first book, and it rapidly made its mark both there and in Australia. His masterpiece, the powerful ''Ravenshoe," followed; then "Austin Elliott"; and the fourth book was another Australian novel, '"The Hillyars and the Burtons," an account of the experiences of two English families in the new land. They are fresh, vivid, attractive books, those Australian volumes of Kingsley's, and they give good pictures of the life of the early settlers, so different from that of the age of motor-cars, of closer settlement, and of other modern changes. Such books have historic value in addition to their value as entertainment. Most of Henry Kingsley's writing has an effect as of pleasant easy talk with a friend. It is very "human." Precise critics may say that often his English is not "correct" but he is one of the authors who have qualities beyond mere correctness. "His best novels," says-Francis Hindes Groome, "are manly, pathetic, strong; yet even the best are full of most obvious faults - elementary solecisms, bad Irish and worse Scotch dialect, frequent improbabilities and occasional impossibilities. Besides, as the critics have told us, they all 'lack distinction of style.' Yet how noble (he loved that epithet) they often are! That a story should move one to tears or laughter, better still to both, is a true test of excellence; Henry Kingsley's stories are hard to read aloud for wanting to laugh, or else wanting not to cry."

WAR CORRESPONDENT IN 1870.

Kingsley wrote 19 books - novels, stories, or sketches - and edited or compiled others. In 1864 he married his second cousin, Sarah Maria Kingsley, and they settled at Wargrave, near Henley-on-Thames. A few years afterwards he was in Scotland as editor of the "Edinburgh Daily Review." With the coming of the Franco-German War, Kingsley went as correspondent for his paper. He was present at the Battle of Sedan, and was the first Englishman to enter the town afterwards. "Valentin" is a story of Sedan. His later works were written in London, and then at "The Attrees," Cuckfield, Sussex, where he died after some months' illness on May 24, 1870. There are Australian references in his fantastic story for children "The Boy in Grey," and in other writings. Two of his essays are keenly appreciative of the work of the explorers Sturt and Eyre.

Henry Kingsley is a healthy, manly writer; one whom it is refreshing to know. There are many, no doubt, who would be glad to mark their appreciation of his work and personality, and of his association with Australia, by subscribing to a fund for the erection of a memorial on his grave. Mr. Tom Roberts's correspondent is another Australian artist, Mr. H. Walter Barnett, now resident in Italy. He suggests that the monument should not be costly or elaborate, but something simple and significant, formed perhaps of Australian granite. The Vicar of Cuckfield, Canon Wilson, is interested in the writings of Henry Kingsley, and is in sympathy with Mr. Barnett's proposal.

First published in The Argus, 10 April 1826

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARGUS

Sir - I read with great interest Mr. William Hatfield's letter this morning and I find it a most practical lead to his fellow authors in Australia. In my more favored land of the Never-Never with our 45 miles of river frontage, we knew neither drought nor water famine but as the years have passed on, two of my bushmen whose names appear in "We of the Never-Never" - Neave's Mate and poor little Tam-a-Shanter - have both perished on terrible dry stages farther afield. So, with great pleasure, I now offer to the Hermannsburg Mission Appeal Fund, in their names, on behalf of myself and my publishers, 12 copies of "The Little Black Princess," the gift outright of the publishers, autographed and inscribed by myself. From myself more personally, I offer six copies of "We of the Never-Never," also autographed and inscribed. The copies of "The Little Black Princess" are now on sale at Robertson and Mullens at 10/- a copy (representing 4ft. of piping), the whole of which amount will be paid into "The Argus" Appeal Fund. The copies of "We of the Never-Never" will not be available until the end of next week, as we are awaiting supplies. Also, if anyone already having a copy of either of my books wishes to have it inscribed and autographed in the name of the appeal fund, I shall be happy to do that through Robertson and Mullens for the fee of 5/- a copy, representing 2ft. of piping, to be paid into your fund-Yours, &c.,

JEANNIE GUNN.

Hawthorn. Feb. 28.

First published in The Argus, 1 March 1934

Note: this letter was written in response to another from William Hatfield that I published here last week.

Manuscripts For National Library

The standing of Mrs. Aeneas Gunn as one of the classic authors of Australian literature gives a special interest to her recent presentation to the National Library at Canberra of the original manuscripts of her two books, "The Little Black Princess'" and ''We of the Never Never."

In addition, Mrs. Gunn has presented some short notes on the history of these books, which will be of great interest to students of Australian literature. "The Little Black Princess," her first book, had many vicissitudes, so that at one time its author feared it had become "a little white elephant."          

Written as an experiment preliminary to the larger work on her outback experiences, the story was submitted to a Melbourne publisher and shown by him to Professor Baldwin Spencer. Through him, it was sent to a firm in London, who agreed to publish it at "half profits to the author." Though 4,000 copies were printed and sold, there were still "no profits."

Finally, with the aid of the Incorporated Society of Authors, Mrs. Gunn recovered "all rights" in her book, together with the stereotype plates, negatives and manuscript, and a bill for £15 for her share of "losses incurred."

In the following year, the book was re-pubiished by Hodder and Stoughton, but by 1921, having issued some 6,000 copies, they considered that the market had reached saturation point. So once again the, author found herself with "all rights" and a huge case, of stereotype plates, etc., with £32 customs duties to pay!

Finally the publication was taken over by Messrs. Robertson and Mullens, of Melbourne, and to-day it has sold 114,000, and is still in steady demand.

The early history of "We of the Never Never" was hardly less eventful, though by then Mrs. Gunn was able to some extent to profit by her previous experience. London publishers found it "too local for general interest," and it was rejected in quick succession by five publishers (including the Religions Tract Society) before being "placed" with Hutchinson and Co.

Once published, with a short interruption when the type was commandeered to be melted down for use as ammunition during the war, the book has sold well, and the English editions now total 150,000 copies. In 1927, Robertson and Mullens brought out an abridged edition for schools, and this has now passed its 50th thousand.

Such is the story of the manuscripts, heavy with the dust of publishers' offices, which have now found a permanent home in the National Library.

Mrs.Gunn has added to this gift a biographical record of the characters of "We of the Never Never," bringing their lives down to the present time, and a very interesting collection of original letters by and relating to them.

In view of the close association of Messrs. Robertson and Mullens with the publication of Mrs. Gunn's books, it is interesting and appropriate that the idea to preserve these historical manuscripts in the National Library originated with Captain C. H. Peters, the manager of that firm. He has also given invaluable help in selecting and gathering the material and having it despatched to Canberra.    

First published in The Canberra Times, 28 July 1937

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARGUS

Sir -As one interested in native welfare, I should like to make a small contribution toward the Hermannsburg Mission water supply scheme. My publishers Messrs. Angus and Robertson, have joined me in presenting a dozen copies of my novel "Desert Saga" - which deals with a fictitious branch of the Arunta tribe, who eventually get an assured water supply through the co-operation of a white settler - the books to be sold and the proceeds handed to "The Argus" fund. Anyone who feels that some measure of recompense is due to the peaceful people, whose land this originally was, could scarcely demonstrate it in a more practical or useful manner. I happened to be at Hermannsburg, and I drove Mr. Talbot, of gold exploration fame, out to Koporlija springs to survey levels, &c, for the scheme, and heard his report on the practicability of the project. At present 16,000 gallons a day of excellent water go to waste in desert rocks and sand, while a few miles away the natives have to watch their irrigable patch of fertile land lie idle when the well adjacent goes dry. They only want the pipes, £1,800 worth. They can do all the rest. One hears that the native is a useless, idle fellow, but to see the excellent water conservation works already carried out at the mission is to find proof to the contrary. There the aborigines have done everything, from excavating the material with which to make their own concrete to the last trowelling off of the surface. Scurvy decimated the Hermannsburg tribe in the recent five years' drought, when a small vegetable ration would have kept the natives alive and well. I hope that in this last week of the drive "The Argus" will succeed in getting the balance of the amount required for this humane work. This year when Melbourne folk are celebrating the hundredth anniversary of their acquisition of this land, worth many millions of pounds, surely the city itself can vastly oversubscribe such a small sum to soften the existence of those last remnants of a race dispossessed and fast dying out. My books, specially inscribed and autographed, will be on sale at Robertson and Mullens, at 10/ each (4ft. of piping).

-Yours, &c.

WILLIAM HATFIELD.

St Kilda. Feb. 27.

First published in The Argus, 28 February 1934

Prophetic Verse Written Many Years Ago Has a Striking New Meaning Today

In the reams of matter which has been written about the peril now confronting our country there has been one strange omission. Not one mention has been made of the man, who more than any other, attempted time and time again to wake us from our complacency, to bestir us to action, to prepare us for the ordeal we must endure.

The man, of course, is no longer living. He has been dead for 20 years. But his voice and his spirit are with us today, and the warnings, the unheeded warnings, he uttered 30 and 40 years ago now have a grim topicality. His name?

Henry Lawson.

Here, for example, is an extract from a poem published in a collection of verse issued in 1905 (the actual date of writing was much earlier) :

"By our place in the midst of the furthest seas we were fated to stand alone
When the nations fly at each other's throats let Australia look to her own;
Let her spend her gold on the barren west, let her keep her men at home;
For the South must look to the South for strength in the storm that is to come."

Topical? But wait, hear the next verse:

"Now who shall gallop from cape to cape, and who shall defend our shores
The crowd that stands on the kerb agape and glares at the cricket scores?
And who will hold the invader back when the shells tear up the ground
The weeds that yelp by the cycling track while a nigger scorches round?"

Compared with that attack, recent remarks by our leaders about our lack of realism are mild indeed. Let us hear Lawson a little further, however:

"And is it our fate that we'll wake too late to the truth that we were blind,
With a foreign foe at our harbour gate and a blazing drought behind."

For the present-day Sydneyite suffering from the water shortage this must make wry reading.

But this is not all. In a poem entitled "Australian Engineers," Lawson pleaded for expansion of local industry, spoke of the boys who

"Long for the crank and belting, the gear and the whirring wheel.
The stamp of the giant hammer, the glint of the polished steel.
For the mould and the vice and the lathe - they are boys who long for the keys
To the doors of the world's Mechanics and Science's mysteries."

Dipping at random into poems such as "The Heart of Australia," "The Vanguard," "In the Storm That Is to Come," "Here Died," "The Star of Australasia," and "At the Beating of a Drum," one is amazed at Lawson's foresight.

Away back in the days of the Russo-Japanese war he realised the significance of Russia to this country:

"Hold them, Ivan! staggering bravely underneath your gloomy sky;
Hold them, Ivan! we shall need you pretty badly by-and-by!
Fighting for the Indian Empire, when the British pay their debt.

"Never Britain watched for Blucher as he'll watch for Ivan yet!
It means all to young Australia -- it means life or death to us,
For the vanguard of the White Man is the vanguard of the Russ."

Today the importance of Russia's struggle to the British Empire is universally recognised, and, notwithstanding varying political ideals, a bond of friendship is being woven between the USSR and Britain which augurs well for the future.

The Department of Information has been criticised, rightly or wrongly I do not know, for the insipidity of its efforts to arouse our people to action. Why has use not been made of the works of our national poet? His works are vibrant with the sturdy democracy, the forthrightness, the patriotism, that will bring us victory.

Despite his criticism of his fellow countrymen, Lawson knew that Australian would fight to the last to save their homeland:

"When the city alight shall wait bynight for news from a far-out post,
And men ride down from the farming town to patrol the lonely coast
Till they hear the thud of a distant gun, or the distant rifles crack,
And Australians spring to theirarms as one to drive the invaders back.

"But they'll waste their breath in no empty boast, and they'll prove to the world their worth,
When the shearers rush to the Eastern coast, and the miners rush to Perth.
And the man who fights in a Queenscliff fort, or up by Keppel Bay,
Will know that his mates at Bunbury are doing their share that day."

Today, with the enemy near our shores; we need courage and patriotism and faith in our common people such as Henry Lawson possessed. And before we turn to the task before us let us hear one last word from this great Australian:

"Fear ye not the stormy future, for the Battle Hymn is strong,
And the armies of Australia shall not march without a song;
The glorious words and music of Australia's song shall come
When her true hearts rush together at the beating of a drum.

"We may not be there to hear it 'twill be written in the night,
And Australia's foes shall fear it in the hour before the fight.
The glorious,words and music from a lonely heart shall come
When our sons shall rush to danger at the beating of a drum.

"He shall be unknown who writes it; he shall soon forgotten be,
But the song shall ring through ages as a song of liberty.
And I say the words and music of our Battle Hymn shall come
When Australia wakes in anger at the beating of a drum."

First published in The Argus, 21 February 1942

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Mr. A.B. Paterson ("Banjo"), who represented the "Sydney Morning Herald" and "The Argus" at the front in South Africa, returned to Australia on Thursday. He arrived at Adelaide in the s.s. Wilcannia, and came on to Melbourne by the   express, which arrived on Saturday. He was received at Spencer-street by a few friends, who were glad to welcome him home, and delighted to see that he was in very good health. Though he intended to continue the journey to Sydney, he was prevailed upon to remain, and he surprised and delighted a large gathering at the Cafe Chantant at the Exhibition building late on Saturday night by appearing on the stage and reciting two humorous little war poems of his own. The first was the one he wrote on board the transport going to South Africa, "There's Another Blessed Horse Fell Down." The second was founded on the army phrase, "Fed up." Mr. Paterson explained that when the men had had enough of the war they said they were "fed up of the war," they were "fed up" on being shot at, and "fed up" on getting nothing to eat. This paradox raised a hearty laugh, which was renewed at the end of the three little verses written on the theme.   In celebration of the event, patrons of the cafe had each to pay 6d. towards the hospital debt fund before being allowed to go out. Mr. Paterson intends to give a course of war lectures in Australia, and has concluded arrangements to that end with Mr. R.S. Smythe.

First published in The Argus, 10 September 1900

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Favourite Characters Are Those Most Easily Recognised; Are There Any in Australian Stories?

When Mr. H. G. Wells was in Melbourne one of his admirers was the Prime Minister (then Attorney-General), Mr. R. G. Menzies. In the course of his speech at the Melbourne P.E.N. Club dinner he said in effect:-

"However great Mr. Wells's later works may be; however fascinating his excursions into the future, in my opinion it is by such immortal characters as Kipps and Mr. Polly that his name will live. I consider that the essence of the novelist's art is in the creation of recognisable characters, and I feel convinced that in, say, 200 years' time Kipps and Mr. Polly will still be recognised on the streets."

Mr. Menzies might have added the names of little Bealby, of lovable Uncle Ponderevo, of young Mr. Lewisham. They, too, are living flesh and blood wrought by Wellsian magic, yet reborn every day everywhere and walking the streets by the thousand in this very city -recognisable by you and me. Quite likely, you are Kipps or possibly Mr. Britling; quite likely I am Bealby.

That, too, was the secret of Dickens's enormous popularity, the popularity which, despite the flippant superiority of certain so-called "bright young people" and the eyebrow raising of that somewhat unreal tribe known as "high- brows" still exists. Mr. Micawber, Pickwick, Aunt Betsy, Peggotty, Mrs. Gummidge, Mr. Jingle -- all of them owed their appeal not to their oddities that made them different from other people but to those many qualities which made them just ordinary men and women. They possessed -- no, let us speak in the present -- they possess "the common touch."

But what about Australian fiction? Have any of our novelists so far created characters whom, once you have closed the book, you are likely to meet at any time strolling down the street, behind a grocer's counter, driving a lorry, hitting the keys of a typewriter in some small office? Of course our novelists have created grocers' assistants, lorry drivers, typists, and representatives of many other callings, noble and ignoble. The point is: has their delineation been sufficiently masterly to enable their men and women to stand alone without the support of the covers of a book? Have they "the common touch"?

There is only one test, and that is the acid one: whether or not the bulk of the reading public -- and by "reading public" I do not mean your scholar who reads Xenophon for pleasure, nor yet that inverted literary snob who boasts that he never looks at anything but an Edgar Wallace, but, again to use an Americanism, "just folks" -- whether or not the latter is familiar with the character, could say in the course of everyday conversation: "Isn't Jim just like dear old So-and-so in So-and-so's book!" And the person spoken to will immediately know dear old So-and-so and see the likeness instantly. Unless this has come to pass Australia has not yet given birth to the novelist who is endowed with the Wellsian -- or Dickensian-magic of character making.

Do not cite "Dad and Dave"; do not cite "The Sentimental Bloke." The former have escaped beyond the orbit of this discussion -- they have become national institutions like the koala, the Sydney Harbour bridge, and Captain Cook's cottage; while "The Bloke" forfeited the right to inclusion by being fashioned in a "pome" instead, of in a novel in the orthodox way.

Someone might possibly cite Richard Mahony, and with certain justification, because Henry Handel Richardson, beyond all argument our greatest novelist, has given us such an amazingly complete picture and penetrating analysis of the tragic Richard. Here, surely, you might say, is a character that can walk alone.

Exactly. And that is why Richard Mahony will never be recognisable by the people among the people -- he walks alone. In Mahony the author drew an individual whose tragedy lay in the very fact that he lacked what all those others , whom we mentioned earlier abundantly possessed: "the common touch"; and Henry Handel Richardson's art, soul searing though it is, is not, and possibly never will be, for any but the comparative few. She is not the novelist "of the people."

And what of our Katharine Pritchards, our Xavier Herberts, our M. Barnard Eldershaws, our Brian Pentons?

They have without doubt done literature in this country tremendous service. They have by their books made it known at home and abroad. But -- has one of their characters escaped from the printed page into the hearts of readers, into the crowds that travel to and from business every day, so that at any time you might pause and think: "I know that chap, don't I?" and then laugh to yourself, remembering that of course you were thinking of an Australian-born Kipps or Mr. Polly?

Or is it that an Australian Wells -- or Dickens -- has himself yet to be born?

First published in The Argus, 1 July 1939

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: it's always "he" isn't it?

Unveiled at Yarra Glen

YARRA GLEN, Sunday--An Interesting ceremony took place at Yarra Glen yesterday afternoon, when a memorial plaque to Joseph Furphy ("Tom Collins"), Australian poet and author, was unveiled. The ceremony, which was attended by more than 200 persons, took place at the Yarra Glen State school, on the site on which Joseph Furphy was born in 1843. Furphy's only surviving sister (Mrs Stewart) was present. Mr J W Lawrey, chairman of the memorial committee, welcomed the visitors, and expressed pride that such an author had been born in Yarra Glen. The speakers included the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly (Mr Everard), the director of education (Mr J. McRae), Messrs G. M. Wallace, R. H. Croll, F. T. Macartney, Sullivan, Nettie Palmer, and Dr Huebener. The unveiling of the bronze plaque was performed by Mr Vance Palmer, who spoke on the value of Joseph Furphy's works to Australia's literature.

Mr. McRae spoke of the courage expressed by Joseph Furphy in his works, and of the very real picture of Australian life given in his book "Such Is Life." Mrs. N. S. Allen sang Furphy's Christmas Hymn, and Miss Joan Brunt recited his poem "Breaking the News." 

Tribute was paid to Miss Kate Baker, East Melbourne, who suggested the memorial. 

First published in The Argus, 1 October 1934

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: Joseph Furphy was born on 26 September 1843 and died on 13 September 1912. 

A few weeks ago we noticed in the columns of a provincial paper an announcement which was invested with a peculiar and sorrowful interest. It was a notification of the death, by consumption, of Mr. Charles Harpur, who has been called "the father of Australian poetry," and who was generally and justly looked upon as a man of genius. For the last thirty years the name of the deceased has appeared from time to time in association with verses having, in many instances, original power, and, in every case, a pure and elevated tone of thought. Some of his lyrics -- "Under the wild figtree," for example -- are as natural as wood notes, and a few of his higher flights, such as the "Creek of the Four Graves," remind the reader of the strength and solemnity of Wordsworth. "The peace and power of hills," which some one finely attributes to the latter poet, seems to have passed, on more than one occasion, into the writings of Mr. Harpur. The genius, however, of the Australian poet was undoubtedly native, although it appears to have been shaped by a long aud reverent study of Milton, the elder Coleridge, and the bard of the "Excursion." His blank verse is modelled on Milton's; and there is a fitfulness of rhythm in his lyrics,which instantly recalls to the memory certain passages of "Christabel." Notwithstanding the influences implied here, several of his poems contain verses and lines whose syllables must have been caught from the wild and waste places of nature only. The stanzas on the "Wail of the Native Oak," and "An Aboriginal Deathsong," are peculiarly waifs of the Southern wilderness; the latter piece reading like a Keene from the lips of the blacks themselves. These, and other verses of their class are filled with that sense of vastness and spectral silence which the mind cannot help associating with the Australian forests; and which Mr. Harpur, of all writers, has been the most successful in describing. The genius of the deceased was not confined in its expression to poetry alone. He was an eloquent, if not an elegant prose writer; and some of his essays in the domain of aesthetics evince a really high critical faculty. We may note, for example, the papers on Chaucer and Shelley, which appeared in this journal about eighteen months ago. Mr. Harpur was born at Windsor in the year 1818,and he died at Euroma, in the Moruya district, on the 9th of June last. His youth, having been passed in the dark early days of the colony, was doubtless, as his frieuds assert, an unsettled one; and possibly, as a consequence,his education suffered. After leaving the Hawkesbury district, the poet spent some years with his brother Joseph, on the Hunter, near Singleton. In the latter locality many of his most beautiful pieces were penned; and it was there that he married. Mr. Harpur subsequently moved to Sydney, where he met and formed a lasting friendship with the late Mr. Deniehy. During his stay in this city he was also on intimate terms with the present Colonial Secretary, and with Mr. Duncan, then editor of the Australian. These gentlemen assisted the poet, who seems to have been of a wayward and restless nature, in many of his later undertakings; and it was mainly due to their influence that he obtained a situation under Government in the capacity of Gold Commissioner. The site allotted as the field of his official labors caused him to move to Euroma, near Moruya, where he continued to reside up to the date of his death. In 1860 a scheme of retrenchment was carried into effect by the Government, and several of the gold commissioners, including Mr. Harpur, had their salaries struck out of the estimates. The poet felt this blow keenly, and from that date his health -- never of the best -- began to decline. The sorrow, however, which hastened his end was caused by the death of a favorite son, who had shot himself accidentally while on a holiday excursion. Mr. Harpur never rallied after the last mentioned event. His life appears to have been one full of trouble; and there is no doubt that he suffered deeply from what appeared to be the neglect of the public. But all his expression was marked with a brave and persistent hope, and it must have been very trying to witness the spectacle of his strong spirit flickering away into the dark, notwithstanding its courage, its capacity for endurance, and its patience under the heaviest trials.

First published in Sydney Herald, 7 July 1868

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: Charles Harpur was born on 23 January 1813, and died on 10 June 1868.

The formatting here is as it originally appeared. You have to wonder at the ability of the readers of early Australian newspapers to be able to read such small print, published in such slabs. I have to suspect that newsprint was scarce and it was more a matter of words per page rather than anything else.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARGUS

Sir, - While valuing a certain astringent and challenging quality in your reviewer's comment last Saturday on a recent Australian anthology, I cannot think that his description of Gordon's "Sick Stockrider" should pass. He writes: - "It is a sketch in galloping anapest." That is to say, it is written in the rhythm of Browning's "How They Brought the Good News," or of Gordon's own swiftly racing lines, "To the Wreck." But Gordon was too good a bushman, too good a horseman, too good a verse-writer to cause a sick man - a dying man - to meditate in "galloping anapest." The lines of "The Sick Stockrider" move unmistakably in a quiet amble; "And the station children playing overhead." -Yours, &c.,      

NETTIE PALMER  

Kalorama, Feb. 27.

First published in The Argus, 2 March 1935

Note: this letter is replying to a review of an Australian poetry anthology, The Wide Brown Land, which was reprinted here last week.

"The Wide Brown Land." a New Anthology of Australian Verse, chosen by Joan Mackaness and George Mackaness (Sydney: Angus and Robertson); 4/6.

This anthology is striking evidence of the poverty of literary criticism in Australia. An anthologist must be, to some extent, a critic, for his choice is an expression of taste and his anthology a guide to reading. One looks for standards from an editor of poetry. The poet may publish whatever he cares to; the task of the anthologist is to select from the mass of verse such writing as is worthy of republication. Perhaps not more than 5 per cent, of the work here collected would find a place in any English anthology of verse. But criticism in Australia has been lamentably indulgent, evading its responsibility with the specious argument that because Australian writers have not had time to write good poetry they should be excused for writing bad poetry.

"The Sick Stockrider," the only poem of Gordon's included in the anthology, belongs to the history of land settlement rather than to the history of poetry! It is a sketch in galloping anapests; not a poem. Yet it is incomparably better than much of the verse in "The Wide Brown Land," for it has the saving grace of rough vigour. If Gordon did not write like a poet he certainly felt like one. But why Zora Cross should be represented by six poems when a writer of the stature of C. J. Brennan is allowed only two poems is Incomprehensible. Nor is there any critical justification for four sets of verses by Myra Morris when a writer of the delicacy of Kenneth Slessor is allowed only one poem - and that, a poor one. Miss Mackaness, one of the editors, has reprinted two of her own verses and five of Louis Lavater's, but Furnley Maurice, who does take poetry seriously, is dismissed with two. The book is full of such critical inconsistencies and errors.

The guiding principle of selection, notably in contemporary work, seems to have been the pretty. Such lines as--

Buy a bobbin!
There goes Robin
Tying time to a daisy's yoke!

which are from one of Zora Cross's poems, may be quoted as an illustration. That is not poetry; it is word-spinning. Many of the other verses are conventionally descriptive; not accurately descriptive, which is a virtue, although not the complete function of poetry. Poetry should interpret some aspect of life by its appeal to the mind and the senses. By that rough standard most of the work here republished stands condemned. The delicate work of Shaw Neilson, the austerity of Brennan, the fantasy of Hugh McCrae, and the ardent spirit of Mary Gilmore are obscured by the depressing mediocrity of the book as a whole.

First published in The Argus, 23 February 1935

Note: you can read the full text of Gordon's poem, "The Sick Stockrider".  The Melbourne critic Nettie Palmer wrote a letter to the editor of The Argus, the following week, commenting on this review.  That letter will be reprinted here next Wednesday. 

MELBOURNE, December 31.

The death was reported to-day of "Rolfe Boldrewood" from the effects of gastric influenza. Thomas Alexander Browne, who wrote under the name of "Rolfe Boldrewood," was the eldest son of the late Captain Sylvester John Browne, of the East India Co.'s service. He was born in London in 1828, and arrived in New South Wales with his father in 1830. He was a pioneer pastoralist in the Port Fairy district from 1844 to 1856, and afterwards engaged in squatting pursuits in southern New South Wales. In 1869 he abandoned pastoral pursuits owing to the prevailing droughts. In 1870 he became a police magistrate and goldfields warden in New South Wales, a position he held until 1895, when he retired to live in Melbourne. Mr. Browne was best known by the name under which he wrote, "Rolfe Boldrewood." He was the author of numerous stories of Australian life, some of which were of very high literary quality. His best known work is "'Robbery under Arms," which was published in 1883. In this story he gathered together all the bushranging traditions of New South Wales, and wove them into a tale which, for real pathos, vivid description, and sustained interest, has seldom been approached by any Australian writer. The verisimilitude of the tale was such that, to many, Starlight and the Marstons were living personalities. His other works did not reach the standard of "Robbery under Arms," but they were very popular, as they contained first-hand descriptions of the old overlanding and digging days, and the wild life of the backblocks generally. He published, in all, some 18 stories.

First published in The Mercury, 1 January 1910

Note: I had to check the date of this newspaper article twice to ensure I had it right - and I did - and I find this obituary highly amusing, though I doubt that Browne felt the same way. He actually died some five years later. The obituaries from that time aren't much different.

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: Rolf Boldrewood was born on 6 August 1826 and died on 11 March 1915.

Mr. A. B. Paterson is modest with much right to be otherwise, which is more than can be said of many poets. The title which he has chosen for his book, "The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses" -- is as unpretentious a designation as we have seen for a collection of really admirable poems. In his preface to the volume Rolf Boldrewood expresses the opinion that "this collection comprises the best bush ballads written since the death of Lindsay Gordon." We are prepared to go a little further and say that even Gordon is less widely known in Australia than Paterson, certainly, but as "The Banjo," the pen name under which the talented author of "The Man from Snowy River" has hitherto hidden his identity. It strikes one at first as somewhat strange that in his book Mr. Paterson omits to mention his identity with "The Banjo;" but on consideratlon it becomes apparent that the man who wrote "The Geebung Polo Club," "Clancy of the Overflow," and "The Man from Ironbark" needs no other introduction whatever name he may afterwards choose to write under. There is no mistaking the swing of his verses. Perhaps no Australian poet has a wider local fame than Mr. Paterson. The four bush ballads just mentioned, not to speak of others, are to be heard all over Australia -- in every station hut from Cape York to Wilson's Promontory, from Cape Palmerston to Shark Bay -- wherever the white man has settled the swinging rhyme of "The Man from Snowy River" is familiar to everyone who has ever spent a night at a camp fire. Mr. Paterson has done well to give this fine piece of composition the place of honour. Though it is not easy to discriminate between several of his best poems, there is no mistaking the grandeur of his narration of how the Snowy River rider turned back the mob of wild horses when every other man, including the famous "Clancy of the Overflow," had fain confessed himself beaten. This man from Snowy River, though only "a stripling on a small and weedy beast," that was--

Something like a racehorse undersized,
   With a touch of Timor pony -- three-parts thoroughbred at least --
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized --

When they reached the mountain summit even Clancy took a pull,
   It well might make the boldest hold their breath,
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
   Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.
But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
   And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
   While the others stood and watched in very fear.
And after the stripling on his pony had run the mob single-handed
   Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.

His hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
   He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted and his courage fiery hot,
   For never yet was mountain horse a cur.

Then "The Geebung Polo Club" has been quoted and parodied times out of number. It has even attracted the notice of English papers devoted to the noble sport, and has been quoted verbatim for the appreciation of readers who could wonder at, though they might not understand, the conditions under which that famous match was played between the Geebungs and the "Cuff and Collar Team," when both teams died in their heroic efforts to beat each other. Mr. Paterson thus discloses the result of that fateful contest--

By the Old Campaspe River, where the breezes shake the grass,
There's a row of little gravestones that the stockmen never pass,
For they bear a rude inscription saying, "Stranger, drop a tear,
For the Cuff and Collar Players and the Geebung boys lie here."
And on misty moonllght evenings, while the dingoes howl around,
You can see their shadows flitting down that phantom polo ground;
You can hear the loud collisions as the flying players meet,
And the rattle of the mallets, and the rush of ponies' feet,
Till the terrified spectator rides like blazes to the pub --
He's been haunted by the spectres of the Geebung Polo Club.

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
   Gone a-droving down the Cooper where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
   For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 1 November 1895

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

You can read the full text of the following poems:
"Clancy of the Overflow"
"The Geebung Polo Club"
"The Man from Ironbark"
"The Man from Snowy River"

And you can read the full text of the poetry collection reviewed here at Project Gutenberg Australia.

Kingsley, Henry, brother of the late Canon Kingsley; born in 1830, was educated at King's College, London, and Worcester College, Oxford. He left Oxford in 1853, and proceeded to Australia, where he resided five years, returning in 1858. He has contributed to the North British and Fortnightly Reviews, and to Fraser's and Macmillan's Magazines. His best-known works are "Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn," published in 1859; " Ravenshoe," in 1861; "Austin Elliot," in 1863; "The Hillyars and the Burtons: a Story of Two Families," in 1865; " Leighton Court: a Country House Story," in 1866; and afterwards published, in the Gentleman's Magazine, "Mademoiselle Mathilde." Since then he has written three novels: "Stretton," "Hetty," 1871; and "Old Margaret," 2 vols., 1871. Leaving his work of story writing for a time, he undertook the editorship of the Daily Review, the paper which represents the Free Church party in Edinburgh. Finding a difficulty in getting a war correspondent he went to the campaign himself, was present at the battle of Sedan, and was afterwards the first Englishman in the town. After eight weeks of experience as war correspondent, Mr. Kingsley returned, and, giving up the Daily Review after eighteen months' editorship, took to his old work as a novelist.

First published in The Mercury, 24 June 1876

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: Henry Kingsley was born on 2 January 1830 and died on 24 May 1876.

If an intelligent and industrious Englishman, with no previous knowledge of Australia, set himself to a careful study of its literature, with the object of learning something of the habits and customs, the thought, and the ideals of this newest of the nations, he would land himself in very strange places. If he took the resolution of visiting Australia, and of living among the people for some years, he would discover that his industry and his intelligence had combined to mislead him utterly, and that his studies had taken him altogether away from even an approximately correct apprehension of Australian life, in its smaller as well as in its greater aspects. The total output of Australian literature -- leaving out journalism -- is considerable in quantity. It may be divided into two sections. The first comprises poems and fiction on the English model; the second is made up of books whose inspiration and colouring are Australian. The first section belonged particularly to a period when the standard of general education in Australia was not high, and when the educated portion of the community still thought of themselves as in exile, and spoke of England as "Home." How persistent was that tradition will be apparent when we remember that even a few years ago Australians of the second and third generations invariably spoke of a visit to England as "a trip Home." There were no Australian publishers willing to take big risks of the narrow local market, and they had no means of access to the English book circles. Teaching, too, in the Universities and in schools, was for a long time invariably on the English model, with no attempt to meet and cope with local needs, and separate ideals. Such novelists as Henry Kingsley and Miss Ada Cambridge, to name two who had some vogue, used Australia merely as a setting; their characters in thought and in action were entirely English. That cult persists even today, although not so marked, and the writers who follow it have their market in England rather than in Australia. Even Kendall, whose reputation will be revived some day when the babel noises of present day jingle are subdued, used the Australian bush rather as a convenience than as an inspiration. Were he alive to-day, when there is a community life, and some independence of thought and culture, he might have initiated a school of Australian poetry of high distinction. Of other Australian poets Brunton Stephens, and, on occasion, Essex Evans, were close to Kendall, and Victor Daley, who failed, had both inspiration and the gift of poetic language which, unhappily, were suppressed by the conditions of his living, and emerged only in flashes. He might have been the most distinctive of Australian poets, but produced little which will find a place in any carefully compiled anthology.

Two men among the earlier writers -- and one was a Scotchman -- left their mark, not so much by the excellence of their work as by the influence which they have exerted on popular taste, and on the men who cater for it. Gordon introduced the song of the bushman and his horse; Marcus Clarke popularised the convict and the bushranger. Gordon loved bush life and horses, and the most popular of his poems have all the freshness of open air life. Then came a period of idleness on the part of the muse, which was broken, when Mr. A. B. Patterson caught the popular ear with "The Man from Snowy River." The note was taken up, and an infinite number of tunes have been written on it. A few of the versifiers, like Gordon and Mr. Patterson, have been men acquainted with the bush and with horses; others, living in the cities, have exploited the theme for all and more than it is worth. Their readers, most of whom live in England or in Australian cities, are satisfied, and so the jingle passes current as poetry, and we have pictures of the bush and its life which are not recognisable by those who know it, and which find their inspiration in some imagined ever-pending gloom, and ignore the real beauty which belongs even to the sunlit plains. Following the lead of Marcus Clarke, a host of writers dived into old records, or used their imaginations, and so for a considerable period it was almost impossible to find a work of fiction dealing with Australian life which had not as its centre of interest some dreadful story of the convict system, or some highly-coloured account of a bushranger. "Rolfe Boldrewood" reached high-water mark with his romantic "Robbery Under Arms," and lent some glamour to the drab and dismal reality of bushranging. But no other writer came near to that achievement, and probably not one of their books will survive, except an a curiosity of literature. "Rolf Boldrewood" made two other notable contributions, which might have set a fair standard for a distinctively Australian school of fiction. "The Miner's Right" and "The Squatter's Dream" were careful and faithful accounts, in the guise of fiction, of critical periods of Australian history, written by a man who had an extensive first-hand knowledge, derived from his experiences as a pastoralist and a magistrate. Both have fallen into undeserved neglect, and might with advantage, and even profit, be revived.

The latest discovered tendency in Australian literature is one which might make us despair of its future. A group of writers in verse and in prose has taken up the larrikin of Sydney and Melbourne, and has found him a gold mine. The most notable is Mr. C. J. Dennis, whose "Sentimental Bloke" and "Ginger Mick" have achieved a success as extraordinary as it is undoubted. The "larrikin" and his female compeer are not at all admirable persons, and the conditions of their lives are such as to beget sorrow for their degradation rather than to call for its exaltation. But, worst of all is the fact that their doings and their thoughts and their living are made visible by the vehicle of a language as degraded as their lives. It is a sad commentary on the educational system of Australia that books written in the most villainous slang of the dregs of the city populations are to-day easily ahead of all others as "best sellers." Amidst all this noise we do, it is true, catch murmurs of sweeter and nobler singing, and the contributions of Miss Ida Rentoul as artist, and her sister as a writer of verse, are representative of the real Australia and of the true beauty and romance of the bush. But the prevailing tendency of Australian literature is downward.

First published in The Mercury, 15 June 1918

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Notes: I just love the condescending attitude of the writer here. The essay starts with a barely disguised lament that certain poets didn't live long enough to gain an audience in England - and thereby gain a level of approval - and ends with a frontal assault on any literature deemed to be about the "villainous slang of the dregs of the city populations". Come on, people, literature should be all sweetness and light, uplifting and wholesome, and concern "admirable persons". Got that?

SYDNEY, Tuesday, In the "Bulletin" competition for the best novel written by an Australian prizes of £500 each have been awarded for the stories "A House is Built," by Flora S. Eldershaw and Marjorie Barnard (Sydney), and "Coonardoo," by Katherine Susannah Prichard (Western Australia). The third prize was awarded for "Men are Human," by Vance Palmer (Queensland).

There were 542 novels in the competition.

First published in The Argus, 22 August 1928

Note: what intrigues me about this is the number of novels entered for the competition. I'm not sure of the period covered by this prize, though I suspect it was only a year or two - A House is Built was published in 1928, Coonardoo in 1929, and Men are Human (interesting title!) in 1930 - which means there were a vast number of novels being written in Australia in the late 1920s.

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Posterity will be interested in the pioneers who broke the hard and stony ground in the dawn of artistics Australianism. The fact that women achieved an early prominence should come to be regarded as typical of the modern advance in the status of the feminine sex. Australia's dawn period may be said to have closed with the Boer War, 1899. Towards the end of this period, in the early nineties, the poems of Miss Jennings Carmichael began to engage the attention of Australian verse lovers. These poems were perhaps the first produced by an Australian woman to achieve distinction as possessing an intrinsically Australian interest. As in the case of Adam Lindsay Gordon, Australia is indebted to "The Australasian" for the world-wide dissemination and recognition of the poems of this fair pioneer.

Grace Jennings Carmichael was born at Ballarat in 1868. Her father, Archibald Carmichael, was a pioneer of early mining days. Jennings went to live at Orbost, Gippsland, when she was three years old. There she developed her love and lore of the bush. Her contributions to "The Australasian" reached London, and made such a favourable impression in English literary circles that in 1895 a fine collection of her poems was published in London by Messrs. Longmans, Greene, and Co. Mr. J. F. Hogan, writing at Westminster in 1895, points out that Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry Kendall both died "before they could enjoy the satisfaction of seeing their works published in London amid a chorus of critical approbation." He also remarks that the Australian bush is one of the keynotes of the poetry of Jennings Carmichael. This phase of her work monopolises attention here, but those who may read or reread her for her intrinsically Australian work will not lightly pass by what may be called, for distinction's sake, her cosmopolitan poems of first-rank quality. "Late Laurels," perhaps the finest of all poetical tributes to the memory of Lindsay Gordon, the children's poems, and the striking "Remonstrance" compel mention. Other equally fine work must be passed over in favour of the authoress's accomplishment in the domain of a distinctively Australian imagery and thought.

In "A Wallaby Christmas-tide" delicate and suggestive Australian images begin to be found.

"The bush must do for our church to-day,
   And birds be the bells to call us.
The breeze that comes from the shore beyond,
   Through the old gum branches swinging,
Will do for our solemn organ chords
   And the sound of children singing."

"The dreamful distances, where blue mist fills
   The bushy spaces. . . ."

"The ranges haunted by a wraith of rain
When lightwood flowers."

"The young night lies upon the quiet land,
   By large horizons rimmed,
The winds are blowing from the low sea strand,
   The distant hills are dimmed.
Dusk's sweet irresolution lingers round,
   Blurring the faint outline
Of fences pencilled on the sunburnt ground,
   And shadowy sheep and kine."

She is fond of singing the "wattle spangles," but her themes are never vapid. She remembers that the wattle blooms in advance of spring.

"You seem to forget the wind and the wet,
   Brave little blossoms bold!
You claim no right from the tardy sunlight,
   But break your buds of gold,
'Neath a gloomy sky, where the storm clouds fly
   And the rain mists are unrolled."

"I did not know the sunward side of wings
   ln shadow overhead,
Nor understand why every wild bird sings
   As if its young were fed!"

"The barren, broken limb is thine by choice."

"Oh, happy birds, let's hear you while we may,
   Dear laughing birds, sing on!
A morn may dawn when we shall wait in vain
   For voices that are gone!
Sing, dearest birds! No cruel hand is here
   To still your strenuous lay;
Only a heart that loves you tarries near
   Your nests to-day!"

"Each soaring eucalyptus, lifted high,
   The wandering wind receives;
I watch the great boughs drawn against the sky,
   Laden with trembling leaves.
A soft, harmonious music, full and rare,
   Murmurs the boughs along,
The voice of Nature's God is solemn there,
   In that deep undersong."

"Delicate airs and harmonies pass,
   Subtle and swift, through the bowing grass."

'"Dear old road, wheel-worn and broken,
   Winding through the forest green,
Barred with shadow and with sunshine,
   Misty vistas drawn between.
Grim, scarred bluegums ranged austerely,
   Lifting blackened columns each
To the large fair fields of azure,
   Stretching over out of reach."

First published in The Argus, 11 March 1922

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

I can find practically no poetry by Jennings Carmichael anywhere on the internet, with the exception being "A Woman's Mood".

You can also read Henry Lawson's poem written about the poet.

The triumphs of the turf are seldom, if ever, celebrated in verse; for though it is a theme which affords countless incidents which might fitly be commemorated in song, yet it must be confessed that racing men are not usually of a poetical turn of mind, and the ordinary poet is certainly not often addicted to the pleasures of the racecourse. There have been, however, within recent years two poets of no slight degree of excellence -- one in England and the other in Australia -- who, from pure love of the subject, have obtained no insignificant success when dealing with sporting subjects. Major Whyte Melville, indeed, confined his powers in this direction to verses either commemorative of some famous hunting run or of some favourite steed; but his prose works were seldom without one or more thrilling accounts of races in which the heroes of his novels were more or less directly interested. Adam Lindsay Gordon, also an Englishman by birth, drew, on the other hand, his inspiration principally from the racecourses of Australia, and, though his chef-d'oeuvre, "How We Beat the Favourite," is the description of a steeplechase in the old country, yet his description in verse of the Melbourne Cup of 1867, won by Tim Whiffler, stands perfectly unique as a specimen of what racing poetry should be, and shows how fascinating such might well become when treated in an equally effective and natural manner. How true to life, and yet what sterling poetry, are the following lines, descriptive of the race-course just before the start for an important race, all who have been present at the Derby at Epsom, or at a Melbourne Cup race, can testify:

There's a lull in the tumult on yonder hill,
   And the clamour has grown less loud,
Though the Babel of tongues is never still
   With the presence of such a crowd,
The bell has rung. With their riders up
   At the starting post they muster,
The racers stript for the Melbourne Cup
   All gloss and polish and lustre.
And the course is seen with its emerald sheen
   By the bright spring-tide renewed.
Like a ribbon of green, stretched out between
   The ranks of the multitude.

They're neck and neck; they're head and head;
   They're stroke for stroke in the running;
The whalebone whistles, the steel is red;
   No shirking as yet or shunning.
One effort, Seagull, the blood you boast
   Should struggle when nerves are strained;
With a rush on the post by a neck at the most
   The verdict for Tim is gained --

When, with satellites round them, the centre
   Of all eyes, hard pressed by the crowd,
The pair, horse and rider, re-enter
   The gate, mid a shout long and loud.

Hark! the shuffle of feet that are many,
   Of voices the many-tongued clang:
"Has he had a had night? Has he any
   Friends left?" How I hate your turf slang.
'Tis stale to begin with, not witty,
   But dull and inclined to be coarse ;
But dull men can't use (more's the pity)
   Good words when they slate a good horse.

In their own generation the wise may sneer,
   They hold our sports in derision;
Perchance to sophist or sage or seer
   Were allotted a graver vision.
Yet if man, of all the Creator planned,
   His noblest work is reckoned,
Of the works of His hand, by sea or by land,
   The horse may at least rank second.

For never man had friend
More enduring to the end,
Truer mate in every time and tide.
Could I think we'd meet again,
It would lighten half my pain,
At the place where the old horse died.

We are in for a gallop, away, away;
I told them my beauty could fly ;
And we'll load them a dance ere they catch us to-day,
For we mean it, my lass and I.
She skims the fences, she scours the plain,
Like a creature winged, I swear.
With snort and strain on the yielding rein,
For I'm hound to humour the mare --

The measured stroke on elastic sward
   Of the steed three parts extended
Hard held, the breath of his nostrils broad
   With the golden ether blended.
Then the leap, the rise from the springy turf,
   The rush through the buoyant air,
And the light shook landing; the veriest serf
   Is an emperor then and there.

Rhymes rudely strung, with intent less
   Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
   And songless bright birds,

If once we efface the joys of the chase
   From the land and outroot the stud,
Good-bye to the Anglo Saxon race,
   Good-bye to the Norman blood.

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

You can read the full text of the Gordon poems:
"How We Beat the Favourite"
"Hippodromania"

"Banjo"' Paterson, who is doing special work for the "Sydney Morning Herald," wrote thus to that paper on Monday:- Coonamble is now the centre of the disturbance in the shearing world. On arrival in the town one sees that the camp of the shearers' forces is now about 300 strong. Every train is watched along the line by pickets. The train, during the construction of the line, does not go faster than a man on a bicycle. As each train approaches, shearers, from the tents, sheds, and humpies forming the camp, stream out. They are mostly men on bicycles, there being very few horses among them. Crowds of shearers meet the train, and persuade any shearer-like man to go to the camp. "Come on, old man, we will treat you well," they say. If even the man is disposed to refuse it would take a very courageous person to decline the invitation. All the roads are picketed. To-day hundreds of shearers in town met in the main street, and were talking of the court decision -- the fining of their leaders. Shearers interviewed say that they must fall in with their leaders, but some of them think the strike is inopportune at present. The shearers are masters of the situation, but the effect of the fines will probably make a difference. The town is like a town in war time -- no one dares to express an opinion except after a careful survey of the surroundings. The pastoralists are waiting for their time. They can wait now that rain has fallen and no grass seed is threatening. Further troubles are unlikely, as matters are at a deadlock here. It is hoped that a settlement will come from outside.

First published in The Advertiser, 29 August 1902

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

What follows is the second part of a selection of letters sent by Marcus Clarke (author of such works as His Natural Life) to his friend and fellow writer George Gordon McCrae in the 1870s).

(e) Anxious as ever for McCrae to do well in the world; asks for his companionship, offers him work, and suggests political illustration:
To G.G. McC.--
O where and O where is my Highland laddie gone? I received the Johnsonian episode with Boswellian comments; but not the little book.
A confiding publisher wishes to publish "Pretty Dick" with etchings, but I am trying to get him to do "Shadow and Shine" with woodcuts. "Will you be in it, Mr. P.?" (Thackeray at Honeyman's party.) The publisher stands the racket and we share the plunder if there is any, and the honor and glory if there isn't. Come and see a cove. The pipe of peace, and the bowl that maddens but does not exhilarate shall be thine.
At home at Public Library on Thursday at 4 pm.
Historical fresco for the new Law Courts -- the "Portonian" whacking A.T. Clark with the "Zulu bodyguard" sharpening his teeth in the background.
'Ow's 'Icks?

M.C.

(f) Clarke not in good health. Contemplates moving his household. Great welcome promised to McCrae. Clarke's whimsical address: "The Lodge in the Garden of Cucumbers":

Robe-st.
Dear McCrae.--
Many thanks for your kind note. I have been deuced bad, and am now a little better, and visit the Library -- at the glimpses of the moon -- with goggles concealing my manly optics.
To add to my delight, the eldest boy has indulged in a little spree of measles all to himself, and, as we are going to move next week to a place nearer Balaclava, you can guess that the young rascal's selfish sport has a little incommoded us.
Do not address again to the Lodge in the Garden of Cucumbers, but to the Library. The new house is called "Sunnyside" -- principally because it is as damp as blazes (rather Oirish this) -- and is elegantly situated in Chapel-street, next to the residence of Tom Miller (be God, sir!) and opposite the Wesleyan Chapel (God be good to us!), the State School (och the haythins!) is forninst the door, and a mighty civil butcher round the corner, me dear, who shall (wid the mercy of Mary!) have the providin' a cut av the primest for ye when you do us the honor of puttin' your legs under the Filtre-and-Clarico mahogany!
'Ow's 'Icks?

Yours always,
Filtre-and-Clarico.

(g) An invitiation for McCrae to see Clarke's play "A Daughter of Eve":

The O'Crae,--
Sor. -- A select parthy of the nobilitee visit the Bijou Theatre on Monday nixt, whin Oi have the pleasure to projuice a new comedee entoitled " A Daughter of Eve." I take the liberthee to enclose to yez an order of admission, and hope to have the hoight of happiness to see yez or some of your friends occupoying the sates resarved for yez.
Recave, Sor, the assurance of me distinguished considerayshun, and belave me to remane, Sor,

Your most obarydynt,
De Philthre and Clarryco.

(h) Clarke speaks lightly to his old companion about hard times. He makes fun of his illness, congestion of the liver, the disease that finally killed him:

Misther O'Donahoo -- ye divil -- It is mesilf that confisses ye to be the pink of purloightness, but if ye call sometime when I'm in the way, honey, 'twould be more plazing to me.
Och, Mister O'D, but ye don't know what I've gone through of late. Me sainted ancesthor the Juke -- God rest his sowl in glory -- left the family diamonds just a trifle encumbered, and 'tis Oi that have the negociatshuns with the Damned Derondas. I've been likewise laid up with a pain in me timpir -- a calamitee which, I trust, yer free from, Misther O'd -- and the lift lobe of me liver has done himsilf the honor to git congisted. Och, wirrastrue, and it is far to Munster, me dear!
But I can guess what you'll be sayin', Macre of the Mountain, whin you read these few and unpretendin' lines. You'll be sayin': "A weel!" and "Ay mon!" and "A's aw for that, ma jo," and other remairkable oberservaitions diggit oot o' your wame ma mannie! By the little toenail of a fastin' priest on the twentieth Tuesday after Thrinity (and that' a big oath) it's me that ye want behoind ye with me paadeen, my spalpeen and me sprig of the right rale plant that grows grim and gory out of Saxon blood on the rare ould soil, the Immerald Oile, ye black-hearted Sassanach! Faix, Oi'd rattle the ash twigs about the ears of the dragoons of Killermany and send that bloody Beruadotte to the roight-about wid wan of the largest fleas in his avincular anathomy that iver took up habitation in the corpus humanum, Misther O'Donahoo! By the ninth sthripe on the left-leg garter of the varginal Saint Bridgit, but 'tis Terry O'Flynn, O'Philtre Juke of Clarico and Marquis of Poldoody's Nook, in the bight of the Divil's Bit that would make them shake their shirt-tails to the tune of "Wigs on the Green."

Yours in disgust,
Clarico.

First published in The Bulletin, 6 February 1929

Note: the first part of this essay was published last week.

Miss Marian Marcus Clarke, daughter of the novelist, visited Parliament House on Tuesday afternoon, and was introduced to the Speaker (Hon. F. W. Coneybeer), who conducted the lady over the legislative halls. Miss Clarke, who was introduced to several members, was greatly interested in being shown the corner in the old Assembly Chamber where the poet Adam Lindsay Gordon sat in the sixties, before he took up his residence in Melbourne, and became the friend of her father. Marcus Clarke made the acquaintance of the poet at the Old Yorick Club. The novelist formed a warm affection for the poet, and they were much together. No one more deeply mourned Gordon's tragic end than Clarke, as was shown by the eloquent and sympathetic preface he wrote for the posthumous edition of his collected poems. The scenes of Gordon's Parliamentary days were pointed out to Miss Clarke by Mr. Fred Johns, who is fortunate in having for publication among his biographical memoirs the manuscript of a sketch of Marcus Clarke specially written for the Australian biographer by George Gordon McCrae, an intimate of Australia's greatest novelist, and the last survivor of the notable Melbournian circle which made the beginnings of Australian literature in the sixties.

First published in The Advertiser, 31 May 1916

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

In 1879 George Gordon McCrae was working his eyes out in the Melbourne Patents Office -- he drew machinery in detail, anatomical improvements (?) for locomotives, collapsible permabulators, buckets with double bottoms to them, barbers' chairs, omnibus brakes, hat-irons, armor for Blucher-boot heels, windmills, wire ropes, scissors-and-knife combinations, hand-saws: their like and their unlike.

His evenings in Hawthorn (at that time, a widely-spaced village, decorated with trees and grass to walk upon) gave him the relaxation he needed.

Out of office hours he wrote "The Man in the Iron Mask," "The Story of Balladeadro" and "Mamba the Bright-eyed;" followed, in 1883, by "A Rosebud from the Garden of the Taj."

"Out of office hours" has been written advisedly; because W. Hicks, McCrae's chief, looked with an Arctic eye upon literature in Australia; and, should any person have dared to jingle in the department he administered, that person should have jingled incontinently out again.

Good man, Hicks.

Nevertheless, not through lack of watching, he failed of his prey; so the poet remained a poet (that is, a practising one) only during intervals spent at his home. One slip: McCrae had taken Marat with Corday and written a drama round them -- a drama full of cries, punctuated by blows from the guillotine. The subject obsessed him; and, in the office, he drew instead of a digger's cradle, the great-bladed instrument drizzling magenta ink.

Marcus Clarke arrived on the edge of lunch-hour; and the two were examining the picture when Hicks walked in.

Hicks's vocabulary, however limited, was equal to the occasion: the drawing was destroyed, and McCrae and his friend went out. On their way they laughed down the passage; and the chief's door slammed in protest against the insult.

A week later Marcus poked his head into McCrae's room; but George held up his hand so that the visitor fell back. Immediately he appeared again, his beautiful eyes shining like those of an angel.

"'Ow's 'Icks?" he exclaimed, and vanished from the apartment.

A few of Clarke's letters addressed to G.G. McCrae:--
(a) Showing his happy carelessness:
25th June, 1877.
Dear McCrae, -
Once I wanted to write about Holland. I borrowed a book and left it for three years. I now return it with many thanks.
Always truly yours,
Marcus Clarke.
P.S. - It is not my habit to return books, but I, to-day, found this one (which I thought I had lost) quite by accident.
George Gordon McCrae, Esq.

(b) An offer to help his friend, and a chuckle at Hicks:
Dear McCrae, -
Can you trinquer at the house of the light wine of the country and converse to me of the Charlotte si noble si douca, at the hour of 4 p.m.?
I will be at the Bibliotheque at my devoirs.
Et M. Hicquer?
Thine, M.C.

(c) Still trying to help his friend; still interested in "Charlotte":
Dear McCrae, -
Still in Purgatory. Syme wants a picture for the Christmas double number of the ILLUSTRATED NEWS. He is not satisfied with present design. I mentioned your name and he said he would be only too glad if you would do it. His idea at present is: a girl gathering wattle blossoms or some such things for Christmas decorations -- large double colored supplement.
Why not see him? Pay is good. "Charlotte" has got to the library. I will send her up the first time I am in town.
Truly yours,
Marcus Clarke.

(d) Through Clarke's influence, Ada Ward (then playing at the Melbourne Theare Royal) agreed to produce McCrae's drama: the piece went into rehearsal, but Miss Ward's elopement cancelled its performance:
Saturday
Dear McCrae,--
Can you make an appointment to have a yarn? I don't care to call at the office on private business during office hours, after recently unfolding my mind to Mr. Hicks on the subject of his communication with the late Attorney-General.
I think that I can get "Charlotte Corday" played for you -- that is, if it is an acting play, and not a reading tragedy. You might bring it, but write first to name hour, as I might miss you.
Truly yours,
Marcus Clarke

First published in The Bulletin, 6 February 1929

Note: the second part of this essay wil be published next week.

Novel by Mr. N. Lindsay: Request for Banning

''I have not read the criticism referred to of a novel by Mr. Norman Lindsay entitled 'Redheap,' and I am therefore unable to express an opinion on it," said the Minister for Public Works (Mr. Jones) in the Legislative Council yesterday, in reply to Mr. Richardson, who asked whether the State Ministry would request the Commonwealth authorities to ban the book. "The question of the banning of a book," added Mr. Jones, "appears to be a Commonwealth and not a State matter."

Mr. Richardson. - I take it that you mean to do nothing.

Mr. Jones. - You would not ask me to form an opinion of a book from a criticism. If the book comes under my notice I shall read it. The author is an old personal friend of mine.

First published in The Argus, 17 April 1930

"Redheap" Banned: Mr. Norman Lindsay's Novel

CANBERRA, Wednesday - The entry into Australia of Mr Norman Lindsay's novel, "Redheap," has been prohibited on the grounds that passages in the book are indecent or obscene. The announcement was made in the House of Representatives to-day by the Acting Minister for Trade and Customs (Mr. Forde), in reply to Mr. Keane (V), who asked whether Mr. Forde was aware that the novel contained serious reflections on the morality of a certain country community in Victoria.

"This book has had very careful consideration," added Mr. Forde. "Although at first sight it was a book against which strong objection could be raised, it was recognised that it was the work of an Australian author, and there was admittedly the greatest reluctance to ban an Australian book unless such a course was absolutely necessary."

Mr. Forde said that in the opinion of the three responsible officers of the Trade and Customs department, who read the book, and whose duty it was to make a recommendation to him, the book came within the meaning of "blasphemous, indecent, or obscene works or articles," and its importation must be prohibited. After reading the book and considering the opinions of the officers of his department and of the Commonwealth Solicitor-General, he agreed that the importation of the novel in its present form must be prohibited.

First published in The Argus, 22 May 1930

Banning of "Redheap": Trades Hall Protest.

The banning of certain books and publications by the Customs department led to a discussion at a meeting of the Trades Hall Council last night, when a protest was made against the suppression by the Acting Minister for Trade and Customs (Mr. Forde) of Norman Lindsay's novel "Redheap."

The following motion was agreed to -

"That this council believes that any ban on literature is a retrograde step, and endorses the principle that all books freely circulating in England should be admitted into Australia, and that this decision be conveyed to the Federal Cabinet for its endorsement."

First published in The Argus, 23 May 1930

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for these pieces.]

According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography: "In April 1930 Faber, London, published [Lindsay's] novel Redheap, based on life at Creswick during his boyhood. In May the government prohibited the book entering Australia --16,000 copies had to be shipped back to London. The ban remained until the late 1950s, although the book was readily available in England, and in the United States of America under the title Every Mother's Son (1930). An Australian edition was not published until 1959."

It is a wise child, they say, that knows its own father. There are signs that literary Melbourne to-day is getting wisdom and discoveiing its forefathers. In the 'sixties and 'seventies there lived a number of writers with more unity than any in Melbourne since then. After having been forgotten among us for many years these writers are now once more in the forefront of our minds. The work that several of them did was never published in book form, but there were others who provided us with the beginnings of our permanent work. Writers of fugitive or permanent type, they met together, with a shared enthusiasm, and to look back at their period is to be invigorated by the spectacle. It is becoming more possible to look back. Within recent years there have been complete volumes of Kendall and Gordon, and quite lately the original and very long version of Clarke's "Term of His Natural Life'' has appeared in a book as heavy as a dierctory. Again, two years ago there was a revival of interest in the poet R. H. Horne, called "Onion" Horne in honour of his chief epic poem, of which there was an Australian edition. Others in the group were journalists who had significance in their time, and who did their part in recognising letters as a craft. Such men Gordon had in mind when transposing his own experience he wrote "The Sick Stockrider":-

Even the yarns Jack Hall invented, and the songs Jem Roper sung:
-And where are now Jem Roper and Jack Hall?

Some day a solidly imaginative history may be written round this group of 1870 or so, and if it succeeds in including not only those four names of well-known writers, but also some that were, for all their human significance, ephemeral, this success will partly be due to the attentiveness of another distinguished writer and onlooker of the day, George Gordon McCrae. Round about 1870 McCrae, a civil servant, was working on a poem of his own, "The Man in the Iron Mask," but he was in touch with the other writers and following their fortunes. Looking back those figures seem to us to be as firmly established as milestones, which for us they are. In their own eyes, though, they were as frail as sea-foam - they had no hold on life at all. It was because of a desire to give some continuity and steadiness to literary life in Melbourne that the Yorick Club had been formed in 1868, with Marcus Clarke, then aged only 23, as secretary. The club attracted anyone who wrote. It soon included Gordon, and later Kendall. Horne had, I think, by this time returned to England after 17 years in Australia, but his personality still lingered in men's minds, and McCrae particularly kept in touch with him.

Here you had, then, the Yorick Club of Melbourne. Marcus Clarke had by now been several years in Melbourne. Beginning as a bank clerk he had found that his arithmetic was too imaginative, too merely suggestive, to yield to the exact results required by a stern directorate. His talents pointed to journalism. Here again he was to be horrified by a demand for some degree of literalness. Writing brilliantly enough as theatrical reporter for "The Argus," "he one night took it upon himself to criticise a performance which, owing to the indisposition of the chief performer, did not come off." He found himself no longer on the staff, but he continued as a contributor, writing also as the "Peripatetic Philosopher" for "The Australasian." Versatile, precocious, brilliant, he ran a satirical journal, "Humbug," in 1869, gathering together the best wits of the day and evoking what otherwise would have remained unwritten. Kendall was with him in this to some extent, but when it broke down - and it could not last long - Kendall went to Sydney, and Clarke made his famous journey to Southern Tasmania, gathering material and impressions for his gigantic serial that was to run - or rather to hop intermittently - through the "Australian Journal" soon after.

Kendall, Gordon, and Clarke.

As for Gordon he came and went. A note, he wrote to Clarke in Melbourne has been often quoted:-

Yorick Club.
Dear Clarke. - Scott's Hotel, not later than 9.30 sharp. Moore will be there. Riddock and Lyon, Baker and the Powers, beside us; so if "the Old One" were to cast a net - eh? - Yours,
A. LINDSAY GORDON

It is Improbable that their wickedness consisted of anything worse than poverty. In nouveau riche Melbourne of 1870, though,poverty was peculiarly unbearable. Writers, moreover, were not, resigned to it. They actually expected to make a living as wriiters. In later periods that expectation, in our commercial civilisation, has almost always been abandoned. Poets have made their living at anything else, from shopkeeping to teaching or politics, and have done their real work, their life-work, in what time they could call their own. To this attitude Kendall, Gordon, and Clarke were not resigned. Undeterred by the record of Poe's treatment in America, they were astonished, as Kendall put it, by

the lot austere
That waits the man of letters here.

Such were our literary "fathers." ln a sense they died leaving no posterity; we have begun again on another footing, both financial and literary. Yet if they were alive to-day some of their phrases, some of their liveliest hopes, would be our own; and the world they lived in was this Melbourne that we know.

First published in The Argus, 31 May 1930

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

The Minister for Customs. (Mr. White) yesterday declined to accept a suggestion made by a deputation from the Workers' Education Association that he should present a return to Parliament detailing the list of books banned in the Commonwealth.

Mr. White said this would give undeserved prominence to these books. The percentage of books retained by the department was very small indeed but extraordinary publicity was given to those which were held up even temporarily.

Urging relaxation of the regulations governing censorship of literature, Mr. George Fitzpatrick, who represented the W.E.A., requested the Minister to give consideration to the practicability of appointing a committee representing the booksellers, book buyers and the university of some other cultural body, and that where censorship was considered necessary, it should be done through the courts as, was the English custom, and not by arbitrary action.

Mr. Fitzpatrick said that three copies of "Britain and the Soviets" and one of ''China's Red Army Marches," had been seized. The copy of the latter had been withheld for a couple of months, although the book was obtainable from booksellers by the public. He pointed out that the association was a non-profit making body and the holding up of books had a serious effect on sales.

The Minister said there was much misconception regarding censorship. Some delay was unavoidable but an alternative system such as that suggested by Mr. Fitzpatrick, involving committees in various States, would mean longer delay, even if effective. One authority to decide whether certain literature was indecent or seditious was preferable to action in six States.

Regarding seditious literature, the Minister said that there could be little objection to the liberal view taken by the Attorney-General's Department whereby only, books which advocated and incited civil war within Australia were excluded. In special cases, where universities or bona fide students made special application, permission was given to release books which came within the terms of prohibition. Protests against prohibition were frequently premature and were, due to misunderstandings.

First published in The Canberra Times, 26 September 1936

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Australians to-day are fighting on the other side of the world with songs on their lips redolent of the Australian bush and that cheery optimism that its bushmen breathed from the early days of British settlement in this land, but the songster is dead. Andrew Barton Paterson's life ebbed to its close in Sydney this week, but the verses of "Banjo"' Paterson will continue to live because they pulsate with an essentially Australian vitality and their fresh originality leaves them undated. We do not know whether this celebrated Australian poet died well endowed in this world's goods, indeed, we would be surprised if any Australian poet had received such material recognition in his generation, but he has enriched and stimulated the lives of millions of his countrymen and has bequeathed to them a legacy and cheerfulness that will be the prize of generations yet unborn.

It is too often the fashion of the literati to despise the poet who achieves popular fame and to see little poetic merit in verses which are on everybody's lips. This common tailing of our university products, who too often also are blind to merit in aught that arouses Australian national fervour, would be particularly astray in its customary attitude if applied to the works of "Banjo" Patterson. There was about them a lightness that their lilt enhanced, but as the lines raced over the open "countryside, raced fie and braved flood, leaped fences and swam billabongs, they carried true poetry in word and phrase, in thought and expression. The Stockman and the swagman, the shearer and the squatter, the men of the outback who blazed the trail and made the present greatness of this country possible - these are the figures which flit merrily through his writings. They were also very largely the subjects that Henry Lawson also revelled in, but whereas Lawson's work was often imbued with a sadness that was perhaps characteristic of Lawson himself, indomitable laughter rang out of Paterson's men and women. They left their troubles behind them as his riders left their fences, by taking them in long, lofty strides. So, the spirit of Paterson's verse has come to be an attitude of life characteristic of the Australian wno has almost adopted "Waltzing Matilda" as a national anthem. He sang of Australians whose dress has changed and whose manner of transport is faster to-day than in the last two generations, but their spirit is the same, That spirit which Paterson saw in the Australians as war correspondent in the Boer War has been intensified in the Great War and flowers to-day again as the Australians take the brunt of the attack in the battles over African sands. The shearer who once tramped the dusty roads with a bluey on his back may to-day travel with his mates in a motor car, but within his breast his heart beats like that of the inconsequential Clancy. For every type that Paterson portrayed, mode of life has undergone inevitable change, but they are Australians and their Australian characteristics are not only influencing the outlook of Australia in the affairs of the world but are playing their part in shaping world history.

First published in The Canberra Times, 7 February 1941

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: A.B. ("Banjo") Paterson died on 5th February 1941

Christina Stead, and Nettie Palmer, the Australian delegates to the Congress of Writers for the Defence of Culture, presented a report strongly protesting against the Australian book censorship, declaring that taking advantage of the distance from Europe the Government was banning books which would keep the Australians in touch with the potential English and European thought. Customs officials, even if scarcely able to read their own name, were empowered to ban what books they chose. The report declared the censorship was in the hands of the Minister for Customs and military gentlemen, who were not in the front rank of literary men, and demanded that the worth of books should be judged by Australian literary readers, and not politicians.

They urged the Congress to send a protest at once.

First published in The Canberra Times, 27 June 1935

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

The Novelist's Art

We may as well give up the attempt, then, to write down just what we say as we say it, except now and then in a phonetic script for students. How do you pronounce "castle," for instance? Whatever you reply, you will add, "of course." Is it "cassel," "cahsel," or something in between? No matter. We shall hardly trouble to indicate it if we put you in a novel. What we may hope to do, though, is to entrap some of your characteristic words, some of the metaphors that come naturally to you, your colloquialism, your rhythm of speech, your slang. Modern novelists of the sincerer sort, including some in Australia, have been aiming at just this kind of idiomatic rendering of their characters' speech and thoughts. And what they have got for their pains has been more kicks than ha'pence. Pained rule-of-thumb critics have remarked severely, "This author shows at times that he can write sound English, while at other times he seems to have no idea of it." On examination we find that the "unsound" passages are usually those that take infinitely more trouble to write. It would be easier to express the random thoughts of a banker or a farmer in formal phrases than to discover what Beethoven called "unbuttoned" rhythms for them, and to suggest them in racy words.

To return to "cobbers." The word is not in the Oxford Dictionary yet, at any rate in its "concise" edition, but it undoubtedly will be. The Oxford Dictionary is always putting out its tentacles for new words. That fine octopus, with its splendid appetite, issues S.O.S. lists inviting the whole world's collaboration. On one recent list we were invited, as usual, to give an instance of the use of several Australian words: could anyone quote an instance of the word "eucalyptian" earlier than 1870? of the word "eucalyptis-green" before 1923? Well, can anyone do this? And does the Oxford Dictionary know that one of our poets has used the word "eucalyptive" instead of "eucalyptian"? Even if it does, the dictionary would not express preference. The next request, undated, is for an instance of the phrase, "Fernshaw gums," which strikes me as strange, because almost every bush district could be used in the same way. The final word in the list is not introduced to please the magistrate. Here it is, "fair (=absolute, Australian)." Do you know that word, in "a fair scorcher"? Not the same word, you see, as in "a fair bit." Perhaps you can supply the Oxford Dictionary with an early instance of its use. (You are kindly requested to send in your quotation on slips measuring 6in. by 4in.) Perhaps the clearest use of "fair" is in this emotional comment, of which unfortunately I cannot give the date:- "Australia, the only country where you can call a dark horse a fair cow and be understood." I would suggest that to "cut out" such slang would be a sin, except to cut it six inches by four, for preservation in that most hospitable dictionary.

First published in The Argus, 6 June 1931

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: the first part of this essay was published here last week.

It came as a shock to see in a law report recently that, when the accused said that he would call two of his cobbers to give evidence in his favour, the magistrate rebuked him. "We don't want to hear 'cobbers' here," he said; "cut out the slang." "What is slang? "Cut it out" is surely a specimen of moderately vigorous slang, but "cobbers," no matter how the word is used to-day has at least an older origin to boast. Why this hostility to a word that in Australia is by now surrounded with meaning and glow? Was it perhaps because the accused, being accused, was not to enjoy himself with the use of such a warm and comfortable word! Or was it the magistrate's general opinion that slang, as opposed to "grammar" was demoralising in all circumstances? But then, why did he say "Cut it out"? We are to suppose that he, like most of us, could not tell where the border ran between slang and current usage. Unlike some of us, though, he ventured to be dogmatic on the subject.

Words in their contraction and expansion, their strange development upward or outward or downward, are simply mesmeric in their fascination. Human minds have caused them to change, have made them work hard, or have left them to obsolescence. "Cobber," I believe, was an old, sound North of England dialect word, and it has somebow become adopted by Australians. The late Barbara Baynton, the distinguished story writer, when republishing her early book, "Bush Studies," renamed it "Cobbers," the word that by 1918 or so had become so general. "Cobbers" will probably persist a long time, side by side with "mates," both familiar to Australians. In England the corresponding words, each slightly different, are "chums" and "pals." But which of these words is slang and which not? The Oxford Dictionary says that "chum" dates from 1684, but its etymology is dubious. No suggestion of slang. As for "pal," it is frankly labelled slang, but its etymology is not dubious, it is English gipsy. In other words, it comes near what George Borrow's fascinating friends would call "thieves' Latin." "Mate," of course, has its origin as "one of a pair, especially of birds"; but its chief use is given as "(In working classes) companion, fellow-worker (also as general form of address)." This use is commoner, surely in Australia than abroad. Professor Walter Murdoch, for instance, in his recent book of essays, says he felt instantly at home when, on his landing at Fremantle after travel, someone said to him, "Got a match, mate?" One more word in this group" "bloke" is described, not as slang, but as a colloquialism. So where exactly are we, and where is our dogmatic magistrate?

The Reporter Standardises

At all times it has been difficult to write down the words and phrases of human beings as they normally use them, and to suggest their rhythm. Most reporters evade the difficulty by standardising language and summarising ideas. A "Hansard" report set down verbatim, and without any doctoring from beginning to end, has, indeed, been heard of with some delight, but only for a short stretch. On the other hand some reporters in different periods have been given space and verge enough to produce a facsimile of a witness's garrulity and idiom. Some of the law reports round about 1726 were so full and vivacious, reproducing even the Liverpudlian accent of a North of Englander with a cold in the head, that the poet Gay had only to use them as a basis for much of the speech in "The Beggar's Opera." While we cannot expect such vivacious reproductions as a common thing to-day, our sense of humour may protest against the other extreme. ln a newspaper report some years ago there was an account of shooting in Fitzroy. It was dark, every house in the lane was suspect; one window shot up: a woman's voice said: "Whom do you want?" Whom, indeed! Would any policeman "want" anybody after such a flawless, unexceptionable use of the objective case at such an emotional crisis! That final "m", I dare swear, was put on in the office.

On the whole, it is easier to write safe "grammar" than to write idiom: that is, to write stiffly and formally instead of racily and with atmosphere. It has often been a usage of writers of the past to divide their characters into gentlemen and workmen. So long as a gentleman, or the author himself, is holding the floor, the speech is uniform, buckram, dull. Immediately a member of the lower order enters, the page is spattered with apostrophes, denoting dropped g's, dropped h's, irregularities in pronunciaton, and general disturbance. it is usual in such pages to meet with words like "pritty," but when one asks how otherwise the gentlemen would pronounce the word, there is no reply. "Pretty women": how does anyone speaking English to-day pronounce those words if not as "pritty wimmen"? Indeed, if all our ordinary talk were written down in accurate phnetic script instead of in the comically false conventions of our ordinary spelling, it could easily be shown that while irregularities and clippings and variations are more or less usual among all types of speakers, no one, no one at all, pronounces English as it is spelt.

First published in The Argus, 6 June 1931

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: the second part of this essay wil be published next week.

An American publicist has been making exploration into Australian literature, present and past. He confesses that the task has been extraordinarily difficult. The books that would have made a complete survey possible were simply not to be had though he was willing to pay nearly twice as much for them as the prices at which they were first published. One bookseller even refused to sell copies of certain books on the ground that they were so rare that they ought not to be taken out of Australia. As for others, consistent advertising failed to bring a single copy to light.

What is anyone who wants to burrow into our past, literary or historical, to do about it? Of course there is the Mitchell Library in Sydney, which meets every demand and is a national asset that will grow in value with the years. But not every serious student can go there to work. And, apart from serious students, there are casual explorers who want to fill in, for their own satisfaction, the empty outlines of our past. There are the visitors who, in passing through our public libraries are naturally anxious to see what books have been written in or about Australia. How are their demands met? Is there anything to show that we are a literate people, interested in our own history, our topography, or the imaginative rendering of our own lives?

The answer must be a fairly emphatic negative. Such books of value as we have produced are usually hidden away, like the family photograph-album of which we are secretly ashamed. Lately I watched a foreign sailor wandering round the vast circle of the Melbourne Public Library and slowly spelling out the lettering of the varied categories of books. He came to rest finally at one tiny shelf in the geographical section labelled Victoria, and took down a volume, his eyes growing large and puzzled as he pored over the pictures. Evidently he wanted to know what the country was like beyond the streets and houses that were not so different from other streets and houses he had seen. But what met his inquiring gaze? Pictures of seals on icefloes, of men in furs, of wooden ships being buffeted by Arctic seas! He turned to the next book on the shelf and it was the same. Ice, sailing-ships, white landscapes, with little black dog-teams straining over the snowy expanse! He put the book down gently and stole off, as if all he had heard about the Antipodes being the country of "upside-down" were true.

Fruits of the Search

If he had explored further on the Victorian shelf he would have found similar books - "A Naturalist at the Poles," Stefannson's "Friendly Arctic," Bilby's "Among Unknown Eskimos" - but no book about Victoria. On the New South Wales shelf he would have found "People of the Twilight" but no book about New South Wales. To be sure, the shelf higher up, labelled Australia would have provided some books about the country, although a meagre and rather uneven collection. Let us suppose though that he had been tempted to explore for pure literature. On a tiny shelf near the roof he would have found a label, "Australian Poetry," attuned to works by Wilfrid Gibson and other modern English poets but not a single Australian book! An eye familiar with the names of Australian writers might have detected a mixed collection of Australian verse farther along on the "Contemporary Minor Poetry" shelf but one does not begin by expecting a visitor to have such a knowledge of names.

A complete circling of the reading room would, in fact, lead a stranger to believe that it held fewer books on Australia than on, say, Peru. That would be an error, for a student with a precise knowledge of what he wanted could by a somewhat laborious search in the card-catalogue of the inquiry-room finally unearth many needed volumes. All students have not this precise knowledge, though, nor should they require it. As for the visitor - well, he probably goes away feeling that, if we have such a perfunctory regard for our own books, there cannot be much in them that would interest him.

To the Lending Library, much the same criticism would apply. In the fiction department there is a shelf labelled as containing the works of Edna Lyall; but there is no evidence that Henry Lawson ever lived and wrote. Another shelf is apparently reserved for the diverting novels of P. G. Wodehouse; but none for Rolf Boldrewood's. Of course fiction is only a minor concern of the Lending Library; the books of general interest are good, both in quantity and quality, but the lack of any guide to Australian work is astonishing and regrettable.

Forgotten Novels

The trouble with our books is that they go out of print quickly and are soon unprocurable. If suburban libraries had formed a habit years ago of buying all Australian books of a certain quality they would have been sure of something that had, at least, historical value. As it is,they have quantities of outmoded "best sellers" that can interest no one. I have diligently searched the shelves of a local library for Louis Stone's "Jonah," Barbara Baynton's "Human Toll," Albert Dorrington's "Castro's Last Sacrament," but I might as well have searched for black opal in a heap of discarded potch.

It is time that a little more attention was paid to the whole subject. In the Public Library the stock of Australian books seems, as far as one can gather, to be fairly adequate; it is the burrowing for them that is difficult. Surely a small section of the reading-room could be devoted exclusively to a representative collection of them, even if such an arrangement meant interfering with the present harmony of design. Most readers would be glad to have easy access to some of them; the visitor would be made aware of their existence. At the very least a catalogue might be printed that would give clear and intelligible guidance to both visitor and student.

The buying and arrangement of books in an Australian library must always be a difficult matter. There are books of absolute and books of relative value, and most Australian books fall into the latter class. But they should have at least as much prominence in our líbraries, as Australian pictures in our galleries. No one can feel much satisfaction in the perfunctory way in which they are treated at present.

First published in The Argus, 23 November 1929

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

It would, I think, be an exaggeration, says "Penguin" in the "Nation," to maintain that publishers are enemies of the human race. Their crimes are enormous, but so is their patience under censure. Byron is credited (incorrectly, I believe), with having asserted that Barabbas was a publisher. It would be nearer the truth to say that Moses was a publisher. For the meekness of most publishers is amazing. Everybody criticises them. Nobody has a good word to say for them; they seldom say a good word for themselves. And when we condescend to tell them how to carry on their business, they admit every defect we point out, and placidly proceed to make large fortunes on the good old lines and in complete disregard of our criticisms. Even the societies that exist to harass them achieve very little in the way of impairing their prosperity. Until recently authors had the great advantage over publishers that they could write novels recounting the iniquities of publishers, and compel publishers to publish them. With the advent of publishers who are also novelists, this is likely to be changed. We have now such ambidexters as Mr Grant Richards and Mr Herbert Jenkins, who can write novels with their right hands while they are busy publishing with their left. Perhaps as actor managers rule the stage, so the day is coming when publisher novelists will be the autocrats of the world of books.

First published in The Argus, 16 December 1916

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Many Australians from all the States, remembering his Anzac prose epic, are keenly gratified to learn that John Masefield has been persuaded by the Melbourne Centenary Committee to become one of their notable guests at the forthcoming Victorian celebrations. Never before has a Poet Laureate of England visited the Greater Britain overseas. His Victorian hosts, of course, do not expect the King's poet to bring a Centenary ode in his pocket, for like his predecessor, Robert Bridges, Masefield has never written verses to order. Everyone recalls how an American journalist, piqued at Bridges' refusal to be interviewed on his arrival at New York, referred to his years of silence in the piquant phrase, "The King's Canary refuses to twitter." But if Robert Bridges' successor to the royal butt of madeira or its equivalent will not arrive in Australia on the wings of song, the Melbourne Centenary authorities have already discovered with no small perplexity that the Commonwealth has an abundance of native poets. "We were a nest of singing birds," said Dr. Johnson with a laugh, when referring to his Pembroke days at Oxford. The Victorian Centenary Committee has proved that Australia is a nest of singing birds. They offered five prizes of ten guineas each for the five best poems suitable for setting to music with the object of obtaining a Centenary anthem, and 279 entries were received. It is true that the judges were not satisfied with any of the poems, and made no award; but they found out at least how many people in Australia are ready to make poetry to order. It almost amounts to mass-production - this Centenary ode making. Had a score of poets hymned the praises of Melbourne as no mean city nobody would have been surprised. But what are we to make of that number multiplied fourteen times? Verse-making on such a scale is an industry rather than an art. The Centenary adjudicators, however, have not given up hope of securing a masterpiece by competition, though they have improved their method of attaining it. They have decided to commission five capable poets to write a worthy Centenary poem at a fee of 10 guineas each. They then propose to give a prize of 50 guineas for the best musical setting to the best commemoration ode.

Can poetry be made to order? is the question raised by such poetical contests. The Romans, a prosy race on the whole, used to say that a poet was born, not made; but Tennyson altered this proverb to the epigram that a poet is both born and made. The Greeks, a poetical race if ever there was one, were continually holding verse contests in their palmy Periclean days. Their great dramatists,Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, sometimes won and sometimes missed winning the tragic prize at the famous Dionysiac festivals at Athens. Pindar wrote his Olympian odes to the order of any victor who would pay for them.There is a story to the effect that Simonides, employed by a stingy Greek princeling to celebrate a chariot race which the latter had won with mules, sang the praises of these half-asses to the great indignation of his patron. Only when the fee was doubled did these mules become the progeny of fiery steeds. Even Herodotus, the father of history, recited part of his nine books at a Greek eisteddfod for a substantial reward. Though his readings approached more nearly to a recital by Dickens they were chosen as the result of a competition. One might trace such poetic contests down the centuries, among the troubadours and the minnesingers of mediaeval France and Germany, while the bards and minstrels of Wales and the Borderland chanted their lays in honour of their lords, and not seldom at their command. As for the English laureates, some of the best bad English poetry is to be found among the Georgian birthday odes of Colley Cibber and Pye. Only with the arrival of Wordsworth were these obligatory odes dropped. Southey's "Vision of Judgment" was the last birthday performance, for after Byron's brilliant satire they died a violent death. Yet Tennyson, of his own free will, so far as a poet sensitive to public expectation may be called free, practically wrote to order his magnificent "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," his resonant welcome to Alexandra -"Sea King's daughter from over the sea," his "Ode sung at the opening of the International Exhibition," his noble "Dedication" of the "Idylls of the King," and at the request of the Prince of Wales the first great imperial poem at the opening of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition-"Britons hold your own!" Command poetry may be great poetry: it depends upon who is commanded.

The Melbourne Centenary Committee is following numerous Australian precedents in its effort to secure a fine poem as the permanent memorial of its October celebrations. In the old Macquarie days Michael Massey Robinson, a compulsory immigrant, used to recite an annual ode on the royal birthday, and had for reward neither cask of sherry nor keg of rum, but two cows from the Sydney cow pastures - milk for milk and-water odes. Everybody knows that it was the winning of a prize Australian poem that induced Kendall to start on his disastrous sojourn in Melbourne, the poet who was at his happiest in quiet sylvan places like Mooni and Araluen. The advent of the Commonwealth brought its crop of competing poets, though not one of them was peer with our James Brunton Stephens, whose "Forecast" of 1877 will ever shine as a bright morning star in the firmament of Australian poetry. It was another Queensland poet, George Essex Evans, who won a prize for an ode on the inauguration of the Commonwealth - a stately piece of rhetorical declamation. Yet with all these precedents to support the rights of poetry made to order it must be admitted that in these modern days prize poetry, like prize novels, has usually something forced and strained about it. It is, of course, the democratic way of settling who shall celebrate our national occasions in the absence of an Australian laureate, and it would be mere snobbery to hold that poets are indifferent to the stimulus of guineas. But what a crowd of poetasters vainly urge their Pegasus to soar with a golden spur! Assuredly the poet's cloth-of-gold cannot be bought or sold by the yard.

Not here, O Apollo,
Are paints meet for thee.

First published in The Courier-Mail, 14 April 1934

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

[Note: you can read an account of John Masefield's visit to C.J. Dennis's house later in 1934.]

"One of the things that makes me waver in my faith for the future of Australian literature in the decay of humour," said Mr. F. W. Eggleston in an address to the Australia Literature Society last night. "Even the Irishmen have lost their sense of humour. There are fewer jokes in Bernard O'Dowd's works than in the Bible. After all the only cure for democracy is laughter, or - if you think that treason - laughter is the only thing that makes democracy tolerable." The subject of Mr. Eggleston's address was the influence of nationality on Australian literature. He said that Australia had produced no really great author, although much capable and conscientious work was being done. Since Bernard O'Dowd left off writing the nation's songs to write its laws, there had been no considerable figure in Australian literature. The best newspapers of the Commonwealth were making a definite attempt to create a literary tradition, and the standard of professional writing was high, despite the fact that writers appeared to be paid in inverse ratio to their qualities. A significant feature of Australian literature was the indifference of the public. The cardinal defect of Australian literature was that it showed lack of confidence in ourselves. When Australian writers gave their work a general appeal and ceased to imitate they would express a point of view that would be recognised as Australian.

First published in The Argus, 19 March 1929

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

WHERE POETRY FAILED.

Melbourne, April l8.

Francis Ducker, the plaintiff in a suit before Judge Gaunt to-day, provoked great amusement by conducting his own case largely in blank verse. He opened to the jury, as follows.-

The charges of the legal bar are much too high for me,
So now to-day I plead my cause in simple manner here,
Against a doctor of the law, the lion, in his den.

His Honor - This is not the first time you have burst out into poetry.

The Plaintiff - Unfortunately, no; but it helps me as a sort of tonic.

Finally judgment, with costs, was entered for the defendant, who denied the retainer, or any breach or neglect of duty.

First published in The Advertiser, 19 April 1904

TO THE EDITOR OF THE BRISBANE COURIER.

Sir,-I must depend upon your courtesy to allow me in space in your columns for this letter. I wish to deny the authorship of certain silly verses recently printed in Queensland newspapers in association with my name. I wish it to be distinctly understood by the duped editors of the journals in question, that I have never been north of this colony, and that I am not a contributor to Queensland prints. I suppose that the author of the miserable hoax, perpetrated in the verses refered to, intended to be funny at my expense, but I am sure that the editor of the Courier will agree with me in submitting that my friend's joke is a poor thing after all. A parody of my style would have been perfectly legitimate but a forgery extending to a stranger's name is simply an act of impertinence -Yours,

HENRY KENDALL.
Colonial Secretary's Office, Sydney, August 4

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 8 August 1868

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Full, Authoritative Biography of an Australian Classic

The famous recommendation to publish Joseph Furphy's Such Is Life, by Tom Collins, was written by that first-class critic, A. G. Stephens, publications adviser to the Bulletin: "This book contains all the wit and wisdom gathered in Furphy's lifetime: it is his one book -- it is himself. It is thoroughly Australian -- a classic of our country. The interest is diffused and slow, and the sale would be slow. It is a book for intelligent bushmen, and for those city men who can appreciate it. It is solid, yet never dull, and the author is a man with brains and a sense of style."

Apart from Such Is Life -- and the story excised from it before publication and printed later as "Rigby's Romance" - little has been known of Furphy by the ordinary reader, although two pamphlets on him were brought out in recent years, Joseph Furphy: the Legend of a Man and His Book, by Miles Franklin, in association with Kate Baker (Sydney:Angus and Robertson, for the Commonwealth Literary Fund), is therefore important. It is not a "legend," it is the first complete authentic account of Furphy and his work.

The main events of Furphy's life can be told briefly. He was born at Yering, Vic, in 1843, one of the five children of hard-working, intelligent parents. He went to small country schools. He worked for about 20 years around the country on harvesting and mining machinery, on pioneering a selection and other hard labour, and for seven or eight years carrying in Riverina with his own bullock-team. He had many friends, good health, no vices. He never attempted to save time or money. So about 1890 he was glad of a job in his brother's iron foundry at Shepparton. With regular hours for the first time in his life, he wrote stories and verse for papers and magazines, and by 1897 had finished Such Is Life. After delays, doubts, and cutting, it was published in 1903.

The book was widely reviewed in Australia, on the whole intelligently and favourably. The London Athenoeum gave it a long notice, appreciative but critical. One of the best reviews is by Furphy himself, in two long instalments, for the Bulletin.

The book sold very slowly, until in 1917 Miss Baker - "that gallant standard-bearer for Furphy," Stephens called her - bought the remaining sheets from the Bulletin for £50, collected £20 to pay for binding, and sold them to a small but growing public. Everyone concerned had lost money by the classic.

The year after Such Is Life came out, Furphy followed his grown-up family to Perth, WA. There he helped his sons set up their homes and business. He read tremendously, wrote little or nothing. While preparing to harness a hired horse to a cartload of castings he had a heart attack and died in a few minutes, in 1913.

A number of poems were published in 1916. Such Is Life was published in an abridged English edition in 1937, and is to be republished for the Literary Fund in full this year.

Furphy's wide reading, his political, moral, and religious views are well to the fore throughout his writings. Here are some typical remarks: "One aspires to know human history from the time we left the treetops down to the present year, so that it all appears like a personal recollection." He was unmusical and had little knowledge of art.

"I didn't want a church that prohibited actual vice - for I am not vicious - but I wanted one that would expel me with contumely for having two coats while another bloke had none. At present I belong to a church which has only one member: There were two of us, but the other got fired out on his ear for being an Imperialist during the South African War."

"The successful man is the pioneer who never spared others; the forgotten pioneer is the man who never spared himself, but, being a fool, built houses for wise men to live in, and omitted to gather moss. The former is the early bird; the latter is the early worm."

His ideal Christian was Dr Charles Strong; his ideal democrat was Bernard O'Dowd. He called himself a "State Socialist," i.e., a Socialist, as distinct from an anarchist.

Miss Franklin's biography is a first rate contribution to our understanding of Furphy, but it has two noticeable defects. The events of Furphy's early life are told without order, and as if the fortunes of Miss Baker were of first concern; and the last chapter, where Furphy is compared with James, Proust, Joyce, and Huxley, is just inept. Whatever the criteria for Furphy, and they are high, they are not these.

First published in The Argus, 27 January 1945

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

On 29 September 1931 "The Argus" newspaper published the following cable from London:

AUSTRALIAN AUTHORS.

No Literary Melba.

British Diarist Puzzled.

LONDON, Sept 28

" Peterborough," the diarist of the "Daily Telegraph " apropos of the opening at Australia House of an exhibition of works of Australian authors, writes: -"The discerning have no need of an introduction to the works of Henry Handel Richardson, but names familiar to the majority of British people may be counted on the fingers of one hand such as Marcus Clarke, Rolf Boldrewood, Adam Lindsay Gordon, and Henry Lawson. Visitors to the exhibition familiar only with this genre will find that Australian literature has changed with Australian life. Writers are no longer much concerned with the simple joys and romance of the open air. They have become urban and complex." After paying a tribute to Professor Hancock's study of Australia, the diarist says: - "It remains an odd fact which has never been satifactorily explained that Australia has a less notable record in letters than in music or painting. Where is her literary Melba?"

A few days later, on 2 October, the Melbourne-based writer Nettie Palmer attempted to provide an answer in a letter to the editor:

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARGUS

Sir-Others will doubtless point out the ineptness of the overseas opinion quoted in your cable messages to-day, that "Australia has never produced a literary Melba." May I suggest that the comparison should never have been made. The career of Melba, who as an artist was an interpreter and not a creator, was essentially a public progress, a series of triumphs with the highest possible visibility. It was never suggested that Melba should augment her glory by spending her whole life in strict seclusion and so writing, with great intensity, a masterpiece or two. Why, then, should a writer's true significance be measured by the external fame of a Melba?
- Yours, &c.,
NETTIE PALMER
Hawthorn. Sept. '29

LONDON, February 28

The death is announced of Mr. Guy Newell Boothby, the well-known novelist, who was a native of South Australia, being the eldest son of Mr. Thomas Wilde Boothby, for some time member of the House of Assembly, and grandson of Mr. Justice Boothby.

Mr. Guy Boothby was born on October 13, 1867, in the house of his grandfather, who was living then in what is now the Passionist Monastery, at Glen Osmond. He was a son of the late Mr. T. W. Boothby, formerly member of Parliament for Victoria. When 23 years old he became private secretary to the Mayor of Adelaide, and assisted in carrying out the arrangements for the first big ball given by Mr. Cohen, in the Exhibition Building. He was always of a literary turn of mind, and many playgoers will remember the production of his drama, "The Jonquil," at the Theatre Royal, where it was far from successful. His first writing of any importance was an account of his bush travels, but his success as a novelist was the result of his creation of the wonderful character of Dr. Nikola, in "A Bid for Fortune." Some people think Dr. Nikola was made to do duty altogether too long in Boothby's novels, but there is no doubt he achieved a remarkable success as a story-writer, an avocation which he must have found very profitable. His output of fiction was considerable, as, apart from short stories, he published during the past ten years about two dozen stories. His best-known were Dr. Nikola, Dr. Nikola's Experiment, In Strange Company, A Sailor's Bride, The Marriage of Esther, and A Lost Endeavor. He married an English lady, Miss Rose Bristowe. Of late years he had resided near Brighton, Sussex, where he found time for rearing prize dogs, horses, and cattle, as well as collecting live fish from all parts of the world.

In answer to a request made by an interviewer of the London Weekly Sun, some time ago, Mr. Guy Boothby explained his methods of work. They were somewhat paralysing. He got up at a fearful hour in the early dawn, when Londoners were just going to bed. His two secretaries had to be there at 5.30 a.m. He talked his novels into a phonograph, and when he had talked enough his secretaries transcribed it direct on the typewriter. A telephone communicated from his room to theirs, as to every part of his large estate.

I asked mildly (says the interviewer) what time Mr. Boothby went to bed, if, indeed, he ever did so, and was told at 9 p.m.

"You must get through heaps of work?"

"Oh, I've finished one novel in the morning and begun another in the afternoon before now. Have to, the work comes pouring in so. Luck? Not much! I had 10 years of steady rejection, without a spark of success to begin with; then I met Kipling in Australia, about '90, and his encouragement helped to keep my heart up. We've been great friends ever since; he's a double man to me - Kipling the Great Man and Kipling the Pal, but I like the Pal best. Well, my first book appeared in '94, when I was 27, and since then I've published 11 others; four are running serially, four more the publishers have got, and six others are in hand." He smiled at my wide-open eyes of surprise. "You see," he added, "I don't take literature seriously."

"But art --" I was beginning, when --

"Art's got nothing to do with it," said

Mr. Boothby, "there's no art in literature!"

"What!" I felt myself turning pale. Shade of Matthew Arnold, no art in literature! To one who had sat in turn at the feet of all the little gods in Grub-street - imbibed their philosophy, and sworn by their catchwords - such a statement seemed the sheerest blasphemy. I expected to see a bolt from heaven descend on the rash speaker. But Guy Boothby sat unmoved and smiling. ". . . . Not in literature as I make it," he continued, and it was once more possible to breathe. "You see, if a man can do a thing easily, without effort, that is to say, it can't very well be an art. You paint or write because it's in you; where does the art come in? You might as well say that driving a butcher's cart is an art. Of course, there's more of it in painting than in literature, because you have to study technique, and so on."

"But surely literature has its technique too? Henry James --"

"Oh, Henry James is a stylist, and doesn't come into the question. Suppose I choose to spend two years on a book, like some of my esteemed contemporaries. . .and . . . perhaps I'd be an artist too; but it would bore me to death to stick at one so long. Style? Read some of the reviews, and you'll see that I've no style!"

This was embarrassing, but Mr. Boothby continued serenely - "No, if all I'm told is true, I'm not an artist, but I turn out books that seem to interest folk and take them out of themselves for a bit, and in return I have everything I want, country house, kennels, stables, and er - well, if you must have it, secretaries who get up at 5.30 a.m. With regard to my work, I never let myself forget what Kipling once said to me, 'Boothby, remember that your appreciation of A's work is just what A thinks of yours!' "

Mr. Josiah Boothby, C.M.G., when seen late on Tuesday night by a representative of The Advertiser, was much surprised to hear of his nephew's death. Asked to give some particulars of the deceased author, Mr. Boothby said -

"It is a long time since he left South Australia, and I'm afraid that I can't say much about him on the spur of the moment. He was the son of Mr. Thomas Wyld Boothby, my brother, who represented the South-Eastern district in Parliament for some time. He was the eldest of three children, all boys, and was born, I think, at Glen Osmond, in 1867. He was therefore only in the prime of life, as it were. His brothers are Benjamin and Herbert, and they, like poor Guy - whose full name was Guy Newell Boothby - live in England. His mother before marrying my brother was Miss Hodding, whose people lived at Fullarton. Guy was only in his teens when the whole family left for England, but he returned when he was about 22, and almost immediately became private secretary to Mr. Cohen, the Mayor of Adelaide. It was at that time he took to writing. He wrote a play called 'The Jonquil,' and it was produced by a set of amateurs at the Theatre Royal, with Guy in the leading male part. He stayed at my father's house while in Adelaide, and was very fond of fiction, his room being always full of light literature. Before he left Australia finally for the old country he and a friend travelled extensively in the back country of Queensland and Central Australia. They drove a buggy, and saw a lot of back country life. After he had been home for some time, I think about 10 or 12 years ago, he married an English lady, Miss Bristowe. He had three children, one boy and two girls. The last letter we had from home informed us that he was unwell, but I had no idea that his illness was serious."

On hearing of Mr. Boothby's death Mr. Cohen expressed his deep regret, and kindly volunteered some information as to his own relations with the deceased novelist. Mr. Cohen stated that Mr. Boothby about 15 years ago entered the services of the Adelaide Corporation. He began in the capacity of a cadet, but shortly afterwards was promoted to the rank of junior clerk. He served for some time as a junior clerk, and was then elevated to the position of senior clerk. Not long afterwards Mr. Cohen was elected Mayor of Adelaide. Immediately Mr. Cohen took office he appointed Mr. Boothby as his private secretary. This was in the year 1890-1. Mr. Cohen stated that Mr. Boothby, with his literary turn, was not contented with his position. He held that there was little opportunity for him to rise in the service of the corporation, and consulted Mr. Cohen as to whether he should not leave and proceed to Brisbane, where he believed there was a wider opening for his talents than Adelaide could offer. Recognising his ability and the small possibility of his having the opportunity to rise to any appreciable degree for some years in the corporation employ, Mr. Cohen, rather reluctantly, advised him to go. Mr. Boothby proceeded to Brisbane, and subsequently journeyed to England. He formerly corresponded frequently, but Mr. Cohen had not heard from him by letter for some years.

First published in The Advertiser, 1 March 1905

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Guy Boothby Wikipedia page.

The Bushrangers, a play ; and other Poems.
By CHARLES HARPUR. Sydney : W. R. Piddington.

This little volume is the work of a true poet, and one whom we should be inclined to place in a high position among English poets, although the work of any pretension in the volume, as regards length, is a failure - for Charles Harpur.

Like many of the finest poets of England, Mr. Harpur has written a very poor play, poor in reading, and we should judge poor on the stage, if it should ever be produced there, in its present dress. The principal character, Stalwart, the leader of the bushrangers, is drawn indeed with some completeness of individual character, but he is the only " individual" in the play, all the rest passing before the reader as mere sketches. Some beautiful poetry is here and there uttered by Abel, the young settler, but it somehow seems not to be appropriate, and rather jars on the sense than otherwise. Ada, Abel's betrothed, is described by Abel and Stalwart as beautiful and gentle, but the poet fails in conveying a distinct individuality of her to the reader. The talkings and doings of the minor characters do not arouse any interest. We should doubt, from this specimen, Mr. Harper's ability to produce a fine or even a good play-but he may console himself with the reflection that many of the highest poets have equally failed in this particular kind of poetry.

On the other hand, we do not think that some of the smaller pieces of the volume have been excelled in the beauty and life of true poetry by but a very few of the finest poets.

Mr. Harpur's powers as a descriptive poet are of a very high order, and there are many passages in this volume that will be quoted and re-quoted year after year. " The Creek of the Four Graves" is a very fine piece of narrative and descriptive poetry combined, and would alone entitle the author to be held a true poet. And the pieces entitled " The Bush Fire," " Morning," " A Poet's Home," " The Manifold Hills," " The Leaf Glancing Boughs," are entitled to the same praise, but in a less degree.

Another prominent feature of Mr. Harpur's poetry is a fine appreciation of the harmonies existing between the mind of man and the sights and sounds of nature. The pieces already named each exhibit this feature, "A Poet's Home," and " The Creek of the Four Graves," perhaps in the highest degree. The sonnet headed " Poetry," a perilous theme in weak hands, evinces Air. Harpur's fine sense of what true poetry is, and is itself a beautiful specimen of it. " The Voice of the Native Oak," " Emblem," "The Dream by the Fountain," and others also may be named.

Mr. Harpur has in the volume several specimens of amatory poetry, but we cannot speak quite so highly of them ; although beautifully written, they seem to us to want heart. The females depicted are creatures of the poet's imagination, rather than true women.

Some fine patriotic pieces are included in the collection, " My Political Belief" being perhaps the one in which Mr. Harpur most clearly puts forth his patriotic feelings, and a very beautiful sonnet it is. Scattered through the volume are a few misanthropic bits of poetry, which read so curiously after the utterings of his own heart that we cannot but think they were written when Mr. Harpur gave way to a temporary a la Byron feeling, once so common with English poetasters, who could copy, but had no power to give utterance to original thoughts.

Mr. Harpur is quite a master of the art and mystery of writing good sonnets, but the only ballad in the collection, "Ned Connor," although effective enough for a second-rate writer, is scarcely worthy of him.

After a careful reading of the whole volume, we cannot but hope that Mr. Harpur will yet consecrate his genius to some enduring work of a longer and more ambitious character than these brief and fugitive pieces, worthy alike of his powers and of the magnificent country of his birth. The man who could write the "Creek of the Four Graves" could surely write a larger work of the same high merit.

First published in The Maitland Mercury, and Hunter River General Advertiser, 14 May 1853

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

"In dreams I always meet
The phantom of a wailing child."

I only hear the brutal curse
Of landlord clamouring for his pay,
And yonder is the pauper's hearse
That comes to take a child away
Apart, and with the half grey head
Of sudden age, again I see
The father writing by the dead
To earn the undertaker's fee.

"Take this rose and very gently place it on the tender deep
Mosses where our little darling, Araluen lies asleep,
Put the blossoms close to baby. Kneel with me, my love, and pray,
We must leave the bird we've buried, say good bye to her to-day.
In the shadow of our trouble we must go to other lands,
And the flowers we have fosteredl will be left to other hands."
"Ah! the saddest thought in leaving baby in this bush alone,
Is that we have not been able on her craie to raise a stone,
We have been too poor to do it, but, my darling, never mind -
God is in His gracious heaven, and His sun and rain are kind;
They will dress the spot with beauty, they will make the grasses grow;
Many winds will lull our birdie, many songs will come and go.
Here the blue-eyed Spring will linger, here the shining mouth will stay
Like a friend, by Araluen, when we two are far away."

"Let us go, for night is falling, leave the darling with her flowers;
Other hands will come and tend them - other friends in other hours."

Upon an iron balcony above the city streets,
All day the pale sick woman lies; across her idle feet
A striped rug from Arabia, and in her slender hands
The magic book that tells her tales of undiscovered lands.

It takes courage to make of one's disability a spring-board by which to leap into the realm of pure romance. This stoic grit is what Mrs. Mabel Forrest has been showing these last two years and more, weaving her fantasies while she lies like another Heine, on her couch, and dyeing the stuffs of her imagination with her own heart-blood.

Only a little groan escapes her lips -"Upon an iron balcony above the city streets, all day the pale sick woman lies." The noise of the street below drowns that brief cry of the heart of a true poet living in our midst. Her own brave music drowns it.

But the people of Brisbane must not allow this gallant poetess of Queensland, our unofficial laureate, to toil on and on without some act of recognition simply because she refuses to be beaten by ill-health, and still sings on of love and beauty with such buoyancy of genius that we should never suspect the heavy and continuous handicaps which she carries with the blitheness of another R.LS. lt was said long ago, with a tinge of sorrow rather than of bitterness, "A prophet hath no honour in his own country"-until he is dead. But we have become a little wiser from the mistakes of the past. We refuse to deny honour to genius because it is contemporary and alive. Only a few months ago Australians from every part of the Commonwealth sent their salutations to Mary Gilmore on her 68th birthday.

Mabel Forrest is like her fellow poets, James Brunton Stephens and George Essex Evans, Queensland born. She knows the bush with all the intimacy and sureness of a native. She has in many a poem thrown the glamour of her poetry over creek and scrub. She not only knows but can weave into a sweet symphony the names of the bush flowers and the bush birds. For this reason all lovers of the open air in sunny Queensland are indebted to the poetess who has found in Nature's highways and by-ways so much fragrance, colour, and grace. Mabel Forrest turns her very handicaps into song. Yet sometimes she grows wistlul and weary-what wonder? Lavishly, has she scattered the largess of beauty around our lives. Surely it is only a sincere proof of our gratitude to cheer her in her physical weakness with a substantial token of goodwill.

The appeal on behalf of Mrs. Forrest has been made on behalf of a small committee in Brisbane, and has been signed by Zina Cumbrae-Stewart (president of the National Council of Women), as chairwoman, and Merna Gillies (president, Town and Country Women's Club), as hon. secretary.

First published in The Courier Mail, 25 November 1933.

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for these pieces.]

Biography of Mabel Forrest: Australian Dictionary of Biography

On 28th November 1923, "The Argus" newspaper in Melbourne published the following letter.

 TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARGUS.

 Sir, - While inspecting some early copyright records in the Commonwealth Copyright Office, an interesting fact with regard to the works of Adam Lindsay Gordon was discovered. It has always been considered that Gordon's first book (that is, excepting his pamphlet "The Feud," of which only 30 copies were printed at Mount Gambier, in 1864) was "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift." All the authorities from Sutherland onwards state that "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift" preceded "Ashtaroth" by some months, and F. Maldon Robb, in his introduction to the Oxford edition of Gordon's poems, published in 1913, not only repeats this assertion, but also states that the names of Gordon's books, as set out on his monument in the Brighton Cemetery, are "in the order of their publication."

 It is particularly interesting and important therefore to find from the copyright entry under the Victorian Copyright Act of 1809 that "Ashtaroth" was published nine days before "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift." The entries are amongst the earliest under this act, being numbers 25, 26 and 27, the occasion being the publicattion of "Bush Ballads," and the date of entry June 25, 1870, which as lovers of Gordon will remember, was the day after his death. Copyright in all three works was applied for and obtained by Clarson, Massina and Co., which is curious by reason of the fact that the name of George Robertson appears on the title page of "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift" as publisher. No doubt the lack of success which attended it (only 100 copies having been sold) resulted in that firm's handing over their rights to the printers and publishers of Gordon's other two works.

 The entries in the register of copyrights are as follows: -"Asharoth," published June 10, 1867; (26) "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift," published June 19, 1867; (27) "Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes," published June 23, 1870. The confusion with regard to the order in which the works appeared is due to the fact that Gordon published them so close upon one another, and on the title-page of each, instead of giving his name, stated that each was "by the author of" the other work. That Gordon intended "Ashtaroth" to take precedence of "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift" seems certain, for when he published "Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes" he stated on the title page that it was "by the author of Ashtaroth."

 For the discovery of the entries in the copyright register, and also for assistance in research I am indebted to Mr. A. D. Osborn, cadet cataloguer in this library.

 -Yours, &c.,

KENNETH BINNS,
Librarian in charge of the Commonwealth National Library.

Nov. 27.

 And the next day, the following reply was printed.

 TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARGUS.

 Sir, - I was much interested in the letter from Mr Kenneth Binns to-day with regard to the order of publication of Gordon's poems. Mr. Binns is perfectly correct in saying that all the authorities state that "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift" was published before Ashtaroth but it may be interesting to your readers to know that the correct dates were published by Mr. E. Wilson Dobbs of this city, in an article he wrote for A. G. Stephen's "Bookfellow" in February, 1907. I wrote to Mr Wilson Dobbs some weeks ago asking him for the evidence on which he based his dates, and he replied that he had temporarily mislaid his notes, but that he had gone carefully into the matter at the time, and thought his dates would be found to be correct. This has now proved to be the case, and while we are all indebted to Mr. Osborn and Mr. Binns for tracing the evidence which has settled the question for all time, it is only right that the earlier work of Mr. Wilson Dobbs should also be mentioned. In connection with this matter, may I mention that I had adopted Mr Wilson Dobbs' dates for the bibliography of Australasian poetry and verse which I am preparing, which is to he published by the Melbourne University Press next year. The number of separate volumes and editions recorded is now nearing 2,500, but it is possible that a fair number of volumes may not have been traced. Some of these may have been privately printed, and others so little advertised that practically they were private issues. I should be glad to receive the names of volumes from authors and their friends, and I should also like to get into touch with collectors of Australiana who have specialised in poetry. In particular I should like to see a copy of "Thoughts," by Charles Harpur and "Ephemera, an Iliad of Albury," by J. O'Farrell (John Farrell), both of which are among the rarer volumes of Australian verse.

-Yours,

PERCIVAL SERLE,

Church street, Hawthorn,

Nov. 28.

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for these pieces.]

Note: the volume that Percival Serle refers to was A Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse: Australia and New Zealand which was published by Melbourne University Press in 1925.

Mr. Fergus Hume, the author of "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," whose death in England has been reported, helped, inadvertently to make another man's fortune. The other man, however, eventually became insolvent. Mr. Hume, who came to Melbourne in the 'eighties, was a barrister with a taste for mystery stories. In 1887 his book, "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," was published in Melbourne and it caught the public fancy. Within about one month 10,000 copies of the book were sold in Australia, chiefly in Melbourne.

An astute German resident of Melbourne bought the English rights from Mr. Hume for £100. He took the book to London, where it experienced another extraordinary success. Within about three months 300,000 copies were sold, and the foundations of a useful fortune were laid for the enterprising German. But he had found a taste for "shocking," and he proceeded to establish what he called the Hansom Cab Publishing Company. The vogue of the "shilling shocker" had just come in; and the lucky publisher set out to "shock" as many readers as he could. He published, among other popular "shockers" Hugh Conway's "Called Back," which thrilled many a maidenly bosom in the quiet 'eighties.

But "shocking" as a fine art declined, and with it the publisher's fortune, and in due course the Hansom Cab Publishing Company went into liquidation Mr. Hume himself made very little money from his book, although later it was dramatised. Only a few years ago it was translated to the screen. His later books did not enjoy the same popularity as "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," and Mr. Hume spent the last years of his life in comparatively poor circumstances.

He may have had some indirect influence upon the development of the modern "thriller," but that is doubtful. Still, if Mr. Hume did not found a school, he lost a fortune, and he enjoyed for a time the fickle favour of the public.

First published in The Argus, 14 July 1932

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Note: you can read an electronic version of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume on Project Gutenberg.
Fergus Hume page on Wikipedia.

[Charles Harpur (1813-68) is considered one of the great early poets in Australian literary history. Although he wrote poetry that dealt with many aspects of colonial life, he can in no way be considered a bush poet, and he seems to have been more heavily influenced by the English style. The "preface" reprinted here preceded a sequence of 39 poems, by Harpur, to be published in the bi-weekly newspaper "The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser" over the following seven months.]

I am painfully aware, that amongst the wiser and most virtuous portions of educated society, there exists at present a strong pre-possession in disfavor of poetry. I do not, however, infer from this, that there is any vital decay of imaginative taste amongst these, the highest order of readers. On the contrary, I believe, that, in such circles, the ideal requirements of our nature (poetical as well as musical and pictorial) are in constant pace with the progress of real refinement; and that the disrelish alluded to, is owing chiefly, if not solely, to the evil uses to which compositions in this kind have been prostituted by certain modern writers of great but depraved genius. But deeply as the divinity of the Poetic muse may have been thus sinned against, it yet behoves the refined and philosophic, rightly to distinguish between her proper tendencies, and the moral alloy with which these have always been more or less darkened by the corruptions of her children. Her true vocation is at once to quicken, exalt and purify, our nobler and more exquisite passions; and by informing the imagination with wisdom-suggesting beauty, both to enlarge and recompense our capacities of pathetic feeling and intellectual enjoyment: and further, in social and national regards, to illustrate whatever is virtuous in design, and glorify all that is noble in action; taking occasion also, from time to time, to pour the lightning of her indignation upon everything that is mean and cowardly in the people, or tyrannical and corrupt in their rulers. Such is the belief I have ever entertained of the genuine purposes of poetry; and to such uses only, I have devoted, I believe, to the best of my powers, whatever of inspiration I may have been gifted with in the compositions which will now be offered to my Country, through the columns of the "Maitland Mercury". In this faith they are presented, and in this faith they should be received; with the reservation, of course, that their readers will judge of them for themselves, after a candid and judicious perusal.

I will but add one further remark, with reference to the language and verse of these poems. I believe the reader will never have to complain of words being used in them which are at all superfluous to the meaning; or that the natural order of language is often deranged by the metres and rhymes, to a degree beyond what would be allowable in the simplest prose.

First published in The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, 3 June 1846
[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]
Note: you can read a large selection of Harpur's poems courtesy of the University of Sydney's SETIS project.

Mr. Victor J. Daley has given us a new volume of verse -- not a volume of new verse, for nearly all the work has been made familiar to us through various Southern papers. It is a good sign to find published within so few months of each other books such as that which Mr. Essex Evans lately gave us and Mr. Daley's collection of charming verse. They represent a distinct stage in the development of Australian literature, and are more truly characteristic of the intellect of the country as the wild and sometimes not particularly polished bush songs which for a time held the ear of young Australia. We do not intend to make comparisons between Mr. Evans and Mr. Daley, and merely couple their names because they come together naturally. In speaking of the song-makers who have gone down somewhat under the surface of things. Mr. Daley's book will be welcomed by every man and woman in Australia who can appreciate sweet thought clothed in faultless verse. So far there is nothing in the book which can lay claim to greatness, but there is in many parts of it work which has both of the qualities Matthew Arnold yearned for: "sweetness and light." Mr. Daley is a gifted and accomplished writer. His workmanship is in every way commendable. There is no occasion to despair of higher things while we have such singers. The opening poem, "Dreams," is a model of modesty. Here are the first and last lines of it:

"I have been dreaming all a summer day
Of rare and dainty poems I would write;
Love-lyrics delicate as lilac scent,
Soft idylls woven of wind, and flower, and stream,
And songs and sonnets carven in fine gold."

"I have been dreaming all a summer day
Of songs and sonnets carven in fine gold;
But all my dreams in darkness pass away;
The day is fading and the dusk is cold."

"Fades the moonlight golden-pale,
   And the bird has ceased to sing --
Ah, it was no nightingale,
   But my heart-remembering."

"Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth's secret bosom
   There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
   Who can'st not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
   Across the golden sea."

* At Dawn and Dusk, By Victor J. Daley. Sydney : Angus and Robertson.)

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 30 July 1898
[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]
Note: you can read the full text of At Dawn and Dusk at The University of Sydney's SETIS Digital Resource site.

Sir Herbert Warren a few months ago delivered a lecture before the Royal Colonial Institute on overseas poetry. The full text appears in "United Empire" for July. Speaking of Australian poets, Sir Herbert says:

Australian poetry, like Canadian, has a history of about a century. Baron Field's "First Fruits of Australian Poetry" was printed in Sydney in 1810. But it really began in 1842, with the publication of the first volume of verse by Sir Henry Parkes, that great poetic Imperialist, the protagonist of Australian Federation. The first native-born Australian poet, Charles Harpur, wrote at any rate one really good poem, but one poem does not make a poet, though I think Charles Harpur was one. He,too, published first in the "forties." Then came the "Golden Age" of Australia. The rush to the diggings attracted poets and artists as well as soldiers of fortune. Among these were two at least of the famous pre-Raphaelite set, friends of D. G. Rossetti, Woolner the sculptor, and Lionel Michael; R. H. Horne, the friend of Keats and author of "Orion"; Henry Kingsley and Adam Lindsay Gordon. Woolmer and Horne soon went back, but Michael remained and became the "only begetter" of Henry Clarence Kendall, one of the sweetest of Australia's early singers.

If Kendall's pensive note was more poetic, Gordon, the gentleman-rider and pugilist, "caught on" far more, and he became, some say, the most characteristic and national poet of his adopted home; certainly the best-known poet in and out of Australia then, and possibly even now. Australia, like Attica, is the land of the horse, and Gordon's religion of sport, his dash of scholarship, often dear to the sporting man, his swinging metres, gave him vogue in the bush and the bar-room, and wherever the "Billy boiled" and its "cup that cheers but not inebriates," as well as other cups, also associated with poetry, were quaffed. "How We Beat the Favourite," the "Sick Stock Rider" - it is enough to mention their names. His poetry and his philosophy of life gave a ply to Australian literature which still persists, and he became the father of a whole line of Australian poets. The best known is, or was, the most popular of living-Australian poets, also a Scot - Andrew Barton Paterson. "The Man from Snowy River" and "Rio Grande's Last Race" are both "horsey" poems. They are quite excellent, but more interesting to me are his Bush Stories or Songs, which depict Australian life. "Clancy of the Overflow," "An Idyll of Dandaloo," "The Two Devines." I find them delightful campfire yarns, while "In the Driving Days" is at once delicious and touching. James Brunton Stephens, also Scotch in origin, John Farrell (Irish, via Buenos Ayres), Victor James Daley (Irish), who wrote Kendall's epitaph--I should like to give speciments of all, but time forbids, and I pass on to a younger generation and another strain. George Essex Evans, a Welshman, educated at Haverfordwest, who went out to Queensland in 1881, seems to me the most real and comprehensive Australian poet of his generation. I wonder he is not better known, that such a volume, for instance, as the "Secret Key" is not better known. He has many sides and themes, he understands what the mysterious realm of poetry is. He holds the "secret key" to it himself.

It was fortunate that his was the Ode chosen for Commonwealth Day. It is a Laureate piece, but the piece of a Laureate worthy to live. Especially did he respond as so many Australians did with both sword and song to the first real call of Empire that came to them in the South African struggle. That struggle need wake no bitter memories now. Even if it did, Essex Evans' poems are not of the kind to do so. "Eland's River," "The Lion's Whelps," "To the Irish Dead." As I have, often said, the poets are more prescient than the statesmen. Evans saw what was coming, and warned his country-men to prepare:

Prepare ere falls the hour of fate,
When death-shells rain their iron hate,
   And all in vain our love is poured;
For dark aslant the Northern Gate
   I see the shadow of the sword.

What are Australia's most realistic spontaneous poems? Some little time ago, through the kindness of Messrs. Angus and Robertson, I was sent, as the most characteristic and up-to-date and realistic Australian poem, "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke," by C. J. Dennis, pub. 1915. It has a preface by Mr. Henry Lawson, himself an excellent and notable Australian poet, and is very cleverly illustrated by Mr. Hal Gye. "Bloke" is given in the Oxford Dictionary as a slang substantive. Well, I knew Australia was a slangy country, and, like most lovers of poetry, I am rather fond of slang in its proper place. I must confess, however, I was a little startled by the Sentimental Bloke and his Songs. But when I really came to read it I found that, in whatever language it was written, it is real poetry, a charming old story, the old, old story, told in a new way.

John Sandes is an Oxford man, a pupil once of my own. So is Archibald Strong, a younger writer of real mark, an Elizabethan of to-day. I should like to speak to you of them, and also of Will Ogilvie, yet another of the "Centaur" poets of Australia. But time forbids.

First Published in The Argus, 21 September 1918
[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

The exciting experiences of Mrs Creed, better known by her pen name Louise Mack, have already been briefly described in lectures delivered by her in Melbourne. They are more fully dealt with in "A Woman's Experiences in the Great War," now published by Fisher, Unwin, London. Mrs Creed left London for Antwerp in August last year, after the outbreak of war, a fellow passenger being Mr. Martin Donohoe, the well-known newspaper correspondent. She was in Belgium for several months of the German occupation, and witnessed many pathetic incidents. She had a series of personal adventures of a sensational character. Of these she writes lightly, and even humorously. She was in Antwerp during the assault by the Germans, and she describes with much pathos the great joy which suddenly came to the dejected Belgians when the announcement was made, "The English are coming." Of the little Belgian army she says:- "Haggard, hollow-eyed, exhausted, craving the rest they may not have, these glorious heroes revive as if by magic under the knowledge that other troops are coming to help theirs in this gargantuan struggle for Antwerp." The joy was of brief duration. In a few days thousands of refugees were crowding the thoroughfares out of the city. Mrs. Creed decided to stay, despite the earnest entreaties of her friends and the Belgian officials. "I am writing a book about the war," she said, "and to see the Germans come into Antwerp is something I ought not to miss."

It is to this intrepid resolve that we owe the most interesting part of this interesting book. The author says:- "As they come onward the Germans look from left to right .... I search their faces, looking now for the horrid marks of the brute triumphant floating over his prey. But the brute triumphant is not there to-day, for these thousands of Germans who march into Antwerp on this historic Friday are characterised by an aspect of dazed incredulity that almost amounts to fear. They all wear pink roses or carnations in their coats, or have pink flowers wreathed about their horses' harness, or round their gun-carriages and provision motors, and sometimes they burst into subdued singing, but it is obvious that the enormous buildings of Antwerp, and its aspect of great wealth and solidarity, fairly take away their breath....I weep as if it were London itself that the Germans were coming into, for I have lived for long, unforgettable weeks among the Belgians at war, and I have learned to love and respect them above all people ... Then, looking up, I see a young Prussian officer laughing at me mockingly as he rides by. He laughs and looks away, that smart young grey-clad Uhlan, with roses in his coat, then he looks back and laughs again, and rides on, still laughing mockingly at what he takes to be some poor little Belgian weeping over the destruction of her city ... Germany, for that brutal laugh, no less than for your outrages, you shall pay some day! You shall surely pay!"

For five terrible days Mrs Creed remained in Antwerp, and then found opportunity to escape into Holland. Her book is valuable as history, sensational as narrative, and written in graceful and poetic style.

First published in The Argus, 8 October 1915
[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

THE DISCERNMENT OF FRIENDS.

People do not easily remember dates. Though there are many admirers of the verse of Adam Lindsay Gordon, most of them, it is safe to say, cannot recall, and would like to be reminded that October 10 was the date of the poet's birthday, and that he was born in the year 1833. More would be able to tell the date of his death, June 24, 1870, for it is chiselled on the base of the pillar that marks his grave in the Brighton Cemetery, and thousands have visited that spot for the pilgrimages held annually without a break since 1910. From the inscription on the monument, admirably designed - no doubt the Yorickers, of whom Gordon had been one, saw to that - the visitors learn also the names of his three volumes - "Ashtaroth," "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift," and "Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes."

In spite of the large sale of the poetical works of Paterson, Lawson, and Dennis, "The Argus" referendum, taken about this time last year, served to show that Gordon was still what he became in the 'seventies, when the first collected edition of his poems was published, the most popular poet of Australia. Students of Australian literature, and they are increasing in number with the Commonwealth's development, have put into print a great deal about Gordon's life. In reading these biographical details, one cannot but pause at times to note by what rare good fortune incentives to the using of a talent that would other wise have remained dormant were supplied.

COMPOSING THE "GALLOPING RHYMES."

For considerable periods before 1853, in which year his father, a retired Indian army officer, engaged in teaching Hindustani in the Cheltenham College, England, packed him off to Australia, Gordon had lived at home, a ne'er-do-well, frequenting training stables and racecourses, and getting a mount when he could. Among his associates he was the "squire." When, in 1860, he wrote "How We Beat the Favourite," his memory took him back to those days.

"Aye, squire," said Stevens, "they back him at evens;
The race is all over bar shouting, they say."

"Here's a health to every sportsman, be he stableman or lord,
If his heart be true, I care not what his pocket may afford."

    "My hopes are gone, my time is spent,
   I little heed their loss,
And, if I cannot feel content,
   I cannot feel remorse."

VERSES FROM PARLIAMENT.

By-and-by, however, marriage, a legacy of several thousands of pounds, and election to the South Australian Parliament produced more favourable conditions. From the Parliamentary library Gordon sent some sporting verses to "Bell's Life in Victoria" (August, 1865). The discerning editor, seeing in them a quality above that found ordinarily in such compositions, printed them, and wrote expressing the hope that more would follow. Ambition was aroused in the young poet, and during the next year or so "Hippodromania" and "Ye Wearie Wayfarer" appeared - extracts from which are familiar on the tongues of thousands. Here are two from "Ye Wearie Wayfarer":-

   "No game was ever yet worth a rap
   For a rational man to play,
Into which no accident, no mishap,
   Could possibly find its way."
"Life is mostly froth and bubble,
   Two things stand like stone
Kindness in another's trouble,
   Courage in your own."

"Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
To scorn delights and live laborious days."

AT YALLUM PARK.

The fates were kind. John Riddoch, who had got to know and like him when they were in Parliament together, invited him to spend the slack season for racing at his homestead in the Mount Gambier district, at no great distance from Gordon's old home. The period during which he was at Yallum Park - January and part of February, 1869 - gave him an
opportunity and an environment for composition rare in his chequered life, the quiet of a comfortable home, the admiration of its inmates, and the certainty of publication in the leading literary journals of Australia - "The Colonial Monthly," edited by Marcus Clarke, and "The Australasian." Gordon used to go out after breakfast and climb an old gum tree in the home paddock, to a seat in its branches, and there jot down his verses, of which he made fair copies in the evening. Thus came into being, among other poems, "The Sick Stockrider," "The Ride from the Wreck," and "Wolf and Hound" - those that Kendall had in mind, no doubt, when he penned the following lines in his "In Memoriam" to Gordon:

"A shining soul with syllables of fire,
Who sang the first great songs these lands can claim
To be their own."

First published in The Argus, 20 October 1928
[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]
Note: you can read the full text of all the Gordon poems mentioned here at Project Gutenberg's Library of Australiana.

THE LONDON EXHIBITION. (From Our Correspondent. ) LONDON. Oct 1. - The Australian Literature Society may congratulate itself upon the success of Australia's Book Week. It was inaugurated by Mr. A. P. Herbert, of "Punch," and Mr. J. C. Squire, and it has already attracted hundreds of booklovers to Australia House. The exhibition hall on the ground floor has been converted into a vast display library, devoted to books of Australian origin. But this is only the beginning of the valuable work. Every publisher, bookseller, and critic in Britain has had his attention directed to the fact that there is a body of Australian literature comparable with the painting and sculpture which have come from Australia. Editors of the literary weeklies and monthlies are tumbling over one another for authoritative articles upon Australian books and authors, and every great daily newspaper has published some account of the opening ceremony on Tuesday afternoon, including an excellent article on Australian literature in "The Times" Literary Supplement from the pen of Mr. A. W. Jose. This alone would have justified the trouble which the London committee and the staff of Australia House have taken to ensure the success of the venture. Two thousand invitations were sent out to booklovers, critics, publishers, and others in the London area, and a representative gathering, numbering many hundreds, filled the cinema hall at Australia House, when the High Commissioner (Sir Granville Ryrie) introduced Mr Herbert and Mr. Squire to the audience. They treated their task of introducing Austialian literature to London with happy frivolity which manifestly delighted their hearers. Nor was a light note out of place, for the Australian Authors' Week makes no claim to place Australian literature on the map of world letters, in any final sense. The 2,500 books which are on show this week are miscellaneous in character, and the lighter forms of poetry, fiction, and belles lettres are dominant.

Nevertheless the Australian Authors' Week afforded evidence of unexpected achievement in the realm of letters -- unexpected because Londoners, at any rate, had not realised how many of the books they treasured were written by men and women of Australian origin. All readers know that Henry Handel Richardson is an Australian, because the subject matter of her novels betrays the fact, but many forget that the high scholarship of Miss F. M. Stawell also belongs by right of birth to Australia, as does the work of Sir Gilbert Murray, Mary Gaunt, A. G. Hales, W. H. Fitchett, who is represented by several very interesting exhibits which first saw the light in "The Argus," W. J. Turner, the poet, and Arthur Lynch are other writers who had been taken into the cosmopolitan stream, until the present display recalled the debt they owed to Australia.

The display of books was interesting and ingenious. The best of the books were in glass cases. The novels were collected on a huge shelf at one end of the exhibition, where the gay covers added a welcome note of colour. One case was devoted to the "Art in Australia" publications and other books relating to Australian painting and architecture. This case showed that a high level of colour reproduction had been reached by Australian printers, particularly in the reproduction of their own brightly lighted landscape art. Mr. A. W. Jose's "Art of George Lambert" and "Australian Landscape Painters of To-day," by MacDonald and Burdett, are examples of books with which Londoners were glad to make acquaintance, not only for their intrinsic worth, but also for the Australian matter which they contained. Charles Barrett's "Aboriginal Art," published by the Government printer, Melbourne, was another book that tempted one to study. The books of the Lindsay family also aroused interest and attracted the attention of Mr. J. C. Squire, who made special mention of them in his address. Ida Rentoul's fairy books, with their deliciously juvenile illustrations, also made a brave display.

The sections devoted to the war naturally attracted attention, and again there was general praise for the production of such volumes as the Official History of Australia in the War, by C. E. W. Bean, H. S. Gullett, F. M. Cutlack, and their colleagues in the records department. It was interesting to compare them with another official record, "The Australian Contingent to the Soudan," which dealt with Australia's first overseas expedition, dating from 1885. Thanks to the Royal Empire Society and Lady Coghlan, there was a good show of early Australian books dealing with the voyagers and explorers. Aboriginal and early settlers' life has also been excellently treated by native authors. Mr. James Bonwick's volumes alone suggested study for months. More substantial and scientific were the volumes of Sir Baldwin Spencer. Indeed the whole section devoted to Australian science and natural history has a manifest value in introducing books to English readers which they might well miss. Not every scientific bibliography will record books upon the platypus or the native bear published in Australia, though bibliographers might well be trusted to search the London catalogues. For this reason the 20-page catalogue of Australian Authors' Week should have permanent value. It sets out the exhibits under the names of their Australian authors, these being under certain general headings, such as Exploration, History, Poetry and Belles Lettres, Fiction, Art, Drama and Music, Agriculture and Industry, Natural History. It is hoped that many of the authors represented will leave their works in the possession of Australia House with a view to future exhibitions, not only in London, but also in such provincial centres as Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, and Hull. Inquiries have already been received regarding the possibility of such exhibitions.

First published in "The Argus", 7 November 1931
[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Remarkable evidence was given by Arthur William Upfield, when the Coroner to-day opened an inquiry in an effort to solve the mystery surrounding the death of a man believed to be Leslie John Brown, also known as Louis Carron, who disappeared near Mount Magnet in 1930.

It is also hoped that the inquiry will lead to the solution of the strange disappearance of George Lloyd and James Ryan, who were Brown's companions.

John Thomas Smith, alias "Snowy" Rowles, who has been charged with the murder of Brown, is alleged to have been seen driving a motor lorry accompanied by Brown, which had previously been seen in the possession of Lloyd and Ryan.

Upfield, in evidence, said that he was a writer of mystery stories, but was formerly a boundary rider. Some time ago, while Rowles was working as a stockman on the Narndee Station, witness discussed with him and a man named George Ritchie, the plot of a mystery novel which he proposed to write.

The witness told Rowles that his story required to be written around a murder mystery, but there must not be any corpse. The story required the corpse to be disposed of in such a manner that it would be thoroughly destroyed. On October 6 1929, he discussed with Rowles a scheme suggested by Ritchie, under which the corpse in the story was to be burned and the ashes sifted for metal and other unburned parts. These metal parts were to be dissolved in acid.

In order to heighten the mystery a kangaroo was to be burnt on the same spot.

The witness said that since then a book embodying this plot had been written, under the name of "The Sands of Windee."

Evidence by the police showed that human bones, thought to be those of Brown, were found in the ashes of a fire.

A pathologist giving evidence said that he had examined some of the bones found in the fire, but they were so broken that they could not be recognised as human. However, several teeth found were human.

A representative of a city jewellery firm identified two watches produced by the police has having been repaired for Lewis Carron.

First published in The Canberra Times, 19 January 1932
[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

DEATH OF AUSTRALIAN AUTHOR.

Mining Tales and Other Volumes.

Mr. Edward Dyson, one of the ablest and most versatile of Australian writers, died at his home, 94 Tennyson street, St. Kilda, early on Saturday morning after a long illness. His age was 66 years.

Beginning to write in early youth Mr. Dyson became one of the best-known of the Sydney "Bulletin" authors in the years when much work by Henry Lawson, A.B. Paterson, and Victor Daley was being published. He was born at Morrisons in the Ballan district, on March 4, 1865 and his early years were passed on various mining fields in Victoria. Much of his work related to mining life. The memories of his father, who arrived in Australia in 1852, suggested some of his stories of the goldfields. His own experiences of mining fields in Victoria and Tasmania, active or worked out, were also freely used. "A Golden Shanty," Mr. Dyson's humorous tale of an old field, gave the title to a widely read collection of writings by Australian authors published in Sydney in the late eighties, and with other stories of his own it was issued independently at a subsequent period. "Rhymes from the Mines," which appeared in Sydney in 1896, contained that striking poem "The Worked-out Mine." The title of "Below and On Top" (Melbourne, 1898) suggested the well-written mining stones which were added in that book to miscellaneous narratives; and there were similar themes in the long story, "The Gold Stealers" (London, 1901) one of his best works, and in the novel "In the Roaring Fifties," which he regarded as his principal volume. ln addition to much entertaining topical and miscellaneous work in prose and verse Mr. Dyson wrote several series of light stories for the "Bulletin" and Melbourne "Punch." These were collected in "Fact'ry 'Ands" (Melbourne, 1907), "The Missing Link," "Tommy the Hawker," and other volumes. Some of the books were illustrated by his brother, Mr. Will Dyson, the noted caricaturist. Another brother, Mr. Ambrose Dyson, who died some years ago, also had ability as a black-and-white artist. Plays were based by Mr. Dyson on "Fact'ry 'Ands" and other stories.

Mr. Dyson has left a widow and a daughter.

First published in The Argus, 24 August 1931
[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Ever since the centenary year 1888 Australia has had a legion of verse anthologists, from Douglas Sladen down to Walter Murdoch and Percival Serle, each with his or her bouquet of blooms from the slopes of our Austral Parnassus. Some time ago Nettie Palmer and George Mackaness made an expedition among our Australian short stories, and each brought back rich pillage in a vivid and breezy book of selected stories. But it was not until the end of 1930 that any one ventured to collect a volume of Australian Essays. The reasons for this seeming delay are not far to seek. The essay has always been a late comer in the evolution of a nation's literary self-expression. As a distinct literary form it only arrived in the world when all the other forms had reached their maturity. Montaigne, in his round tower at Perigord, began it in 1580 with his charming egotisms and his tolerant philosophy of life, and though Bacon within twenty years was writing essays in England that will always remain classics for their aphoristic splendour of phrase they long diverted the English essay from its mobile and imaginative Gallic archetype to a ponderous sententiousness and critical gravity from which it needed all the wit of Addison, the good nature of Steele, the delicious satire of Goldsmith, and the whimsical wisdom of Elia to deliver it. Even the essay of the Victorian Age, for all the brilliance of a Macaulay, the tempestuous vigour of a Carlyle, and the lucidity of a Bagehot, had more of the solid construction of a treatise than the tentativeness of the
intellectual sally, as is connoted by the very name of "essay." The modern essay, that is, the typical twentieth century essay, has consciously reverted to the spirit of Montaigne without his garrulity. It has fancy, personality, and, for all its desultory spontaneousness, art.

Australians, encouraged by the daily Press, have been cultivating this elusive art during the last twenty years, and now Dr. George Mackaness, assisted by John D. Holmes, has sampled the vintage in this first volume of "Essays: Imaginative and Critical"; chosen from Australian authors (Angus and Robertson). It Is chiefly due to the foresight of the late George Robertson and his awareness as a publisher that Australia had reached the stage of intellectual development when it asked for essays, that those green volumes began to appear some six years ago in the format he designed, which have secured for the Australian essay an enthusiastic Australian audience. Everybody knows Walter Murdoch's three immensely popular books in this verdant series -- "Speaking Personally," "Saturday Mornings," and "Moreover" - and many readers have been tempted by so persuasive and guileful a practitioner in the art to extend their study to the "Knocking Round" of Le Gay Brereton, "Talking It Over" of Nettie Palmer, "The Magic Carpet" of Elliott Napier, and others. The last four years have witnessed a remarkable renaissance in Australian publishing - the rate of exchange has something to do with it, and the need of philosophy of life in dull times more - and if the cultivation of the essay is a sign of national adulthood, as some, not themselves essayists, aver, well - Australia has come of age, and this volume is the proof of it. With a prefatory grimace the joint-editors say, "For a collection such as this it is customary to provide a preface explaining the method of selection and other mechanical principles. This saves the critic the trouble of reading the rest of the book. In this particular work we reject the time-honoured custom, and suggest that the critic read the essay entitled 'On Being Australian'."

There could have been no neater hint than this sardonic one to our literary critics in a hurry, who might otherwise have scurried to check the nativity of the essayists and say supercilious things about non-Australian themes with the zeal of an Australian Natives' Association. And it is no less salutary a nudge to the weary London critic who, assuming that Australians have no ability to write about other things, those typically Australian, might take exception to Mr. Godsall's fine essay on "The Cornish Coast," Mr. Macgrath's on "Spanish Moonshine," or even the late Professor Strong's essay on "The Devil," as lacking in local flavour. Walter Murdoch, as becomes his Scottish ancestry, has struck a blow for "the liberty of prophesying." Like a sound strategist, he takes the offensive. "Robert Lynd, an Irishman," he says, "writes, a delightful essay on 'The Nutritive Qualities of the Banana'; does any one rebuke him and tell him that the subject has not the true Irish flavour, that he shows no attachment to the Irish environment, that his essay has few native qualities? Do we beseech him to stick for the future to shillelaghs and banshees, and colleens and Kilkenny cats? Nobody says anything so absurd. It is at least equally absurd to ask us Australians to concentrate our interest on the affairs of the parish. We must assert our right to become, if we can, citizens of the world." It remains to be said that this fine selection fortifies that claim, and discounts, if it were worth while, Sir John Squire's admonition to the high-brows of the "London Mercury" to expect nothing from Australia but "Philistinism and frozen meat." Twenty-five writers have been laid under contribution for this interesting and diverse anthology. Marcus Clarke's famous, if disputable, preface to Lindsay Gordon's poems rightly reappears for its sheer glitter of style. In literary criticism Professor Tucker's essay on "The Supreme Literary Gift" would be hard to surpass. In the biographical essay what could be a more discriminating centenary tribute to Flinders than Ernest Scott's? In Alec Chisholm's essays we discover the true disciple of W. H. Hudson, an observer of Nature, who more and more is becoming a master of literary style. In town essays the reader will find Henry Boote's "Our Street" and Nettie Palmer's "The Bus" drenched with humanity; and Mary Gilmore in "Roads of Remembrance" plucks facts entwined with fancies from the wayside of memory as only a poet can. No doubt there are some names omitted, as is inevitable in so small a book, but the editors have included nothing flashy or insincere. It is a book to browse over in these summer days, and it is the first of its kind.

First published in The Courier-Mail, 6 January 1934

Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.

I have frequently heard the remark made that we have poetry enough; and so we have, if the idiosyncrasies of every age were alike; but they are not, and we might as soon expect to see the fashion for dress unchanging as to see the taste for the same kind of poetry existing from age to age. I confess my taste for modern poetry expired, with a few exceptions, with Byron and Scott. The exceptions were Mrs. Hemans, Bryant, and Whittier. Occasionally, indeed, I have met with a gem in a review or a newspaper, and though I have endeavored to read Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, and Longfellow, they never awoke in me any enthusiasm; in fact, with the single exception of Southey, the reading of that class was a task.

Such is my idiosyncrasy, and yet I know there are thousands for more intellectual than me who literally dote on these writers, and who would prefer "Hiawatha" to he "Girusalem Liberati" of Tasso, or the "Orlando Furioso" of Aristo; aye, and there are some who would rather wade through Chaucer's "House of Fame" and Spencer's "Fairy Queen" than read the finest passages in " Childe Harold."

The British colonies are not remarkable for producing much literary wealth, especially of this kind; and I believe New South Wales is the only one of the Australian colonies which has yet produced a poet whose works will descend beyond his own generation; and yet, after all, literary wealth is as necessary to our well being as the wealth produced by the plough, though scarcely so tangible. A good many reasons may be adduced why this should be the case. The most prominent is no doubt the necessity there exists for active exertion; and another lies in the fact that those in power have never patronised efforts of that description, Sir John Young being the only gentleman I am aware of who acted the part of a Mecaenas.

Mr. Harpur was first pluming his poetic wings for their flight upon my arrival in the colony, and the promise he then gave of attaining the very highest summit of Parnassus has been ably sustained. As a nervous, impassioned, although a powerful and correct writer, he has been rarely surpassed. He never descends to mediocrity, or losses himself in the misty vapors of what has been aptly termed the spiritualised nonsense of the modern school of poetry. He is always clear, melodious, and (shall I add?) sensible; and to my taste resembles Schiller more than any other poet I am acquainted with. In descriptive power he is only excelled by Scott and Byron, and is quite as truthful in his delineations as either. One of the finest things I have ever read was a piece from his pen, which seemed to have been written impromptu, and appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald. It was fully equal to the well known and justly famous "Diver," of Schiller. In his minor pieces Mr. Harpur strikingly resembles the American poet George Whittier. I have heard him, too, likened to that brilliant but eccentric and turbid genius, Edgar Allen Poe, but I confess I can see but little similarity in their works, for there is nothing in Mr. Harpur which outrages probability - a rule which seems to be lost sight of in the greater part of modern poetry.

Of necessity remarks such as I am making must be brief, and I regret the fact principally as it prevents me from giving some extracts. It is singular enough that my first acquaintance with the poetry of Mr. Harpur commenced with the following, which I picked up in a fragment of newspaper by the roadside. I believe it is part of "Spring", in "Saul".

From the herded horse a trample,
   Like a torrent's rupture rolls,
As round and round they wheel them,
   In the glory of their souls;
And the sand of the far desert,
   By the lion is uphurled,
As the tempest robe of winter
   Is gathered from the world.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 27 February 1869
Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.
[Try as I might - and I do have a copy of The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur - I can't find the poem this article refers to.]

On August 1 will occur the 40th anniversary of the death of Henry Kendall. Though not our first native born poet - at least one, Charles Harpur, preceded him - Kendall was the first of our long line of singers whose inspiration is the charm of nature. His paternal grandfather came to New South Wales as a lay missionary in 1809, and in 1814 went in that capacity to New Zealand. After a few years' service among the Maoris he resigned from missionary work and went to South America, to which place he was accompanied by his son Basil - the father of Henry. In 1826 they returned to Australia, and the older Kendall received as a reward for his missionary labours, a grant of 1,200 acres of land in the Ulladulla district, towards the south coast of New South Wales. On part of this estate Henry Kendall was born in 1841. Five years after the poet's birth the family went to live in the Clarence River district. Here, in an isolated home, Henry received from his father his early education. The future poet was only 11 years of age when his father died of consumption, and the family of five children was scattered. Henry and another brother were sent to the home of a relative near their birthplace, where Henry had "fellowship with gorge and glen," the lasting impression of which is shown in much of his poetry. At the age of 13 he was given a place as cabin boy in a small brig owned by one of his uncles. He, however, had not the venturesome spirit of his father, who during his brief stay in South America saw service in the Brazilian Navy in a struggle against Portugal to which Brazil up to this time was subject. During his two years of seafaring Kendall visited among other paces the Marquesas and Japan, but he hated the life and was glad to escape from it. For a while he held a position in a Sydney drapery establishment, and later became clerk in the office of James Lionel Michael, the poet who was a solicitor. Michael was a most kindly employer and showed the young clerk the use of his library and encouraged him in his literary work.

When Kendall was 21 his first volume of verse was published. A little later he was appointed to the New South Wales Lands Department at a salary of £150 per annum, his qualification, according to the official notice of his appointment, being "his literary promise " A couple of years later he was transferred to the Colonial Secretary's office at an increased salary. In 1869 he resigned his Government appointment, intending to devote himself wholly to literary work. He came to live in Melbourne, where he worked at different tasks. At one time he was employed in the office of the Government Statist, but, probably "haunted by the sound of waterfalls two hundred miles away," he deserted the position after three days. About this time his second book, "Leaves from an Australian Forest," was printed, but it commanded only a poor sale. Kendall's couple of years in Melbourne was a period of sorrow and poverty. He gave way to drink, a tendency to which he may have inherited from both parents. For this sin he did ample penance in several poems, particularly in one in which he describes "the dreadful portion of a drunkard's home." To add to his sorrows he lost his young daughter. In 1871 he returned to Sydney, but trouble still dogged his footsteps, and he had to be placed in an asylum - the shadow of 1872, as he speaks of it. He soon recovered his mental balance and engaged in literary work for a little while. Then he accepted a position as accountant in a timber business at a place called Camden Haven, where, with his family, he spent some of the best years of his life. In 1870 Kendall won a prize of £100 for a poem on the Sydney International Exhibition, and a year later his third book, "Songs from the Mountains," was published under a subscription arrangement which guaranteed it's financial success. In 1881 Sir Henry Parkes - ever one of his good friends - created for him the position of Inspector of State forests, but he had held it only a few months when he was afflicted with consumption, from which he died in 1882, at the age of 41. Kendall had no ethical message for his time, the only person he seems to have wished to reform was himself. He was essentially a lyric poet, and wrote with exquisite beauty of the charm of mossy springs and streams and waterfalls - "songs interwoven of lights and of laughters." In one of his poems he says that he longs to steal the beauty of the brook, and put it in his song, and he went as near accomplishing this impossible task as any poet, and in the well known lines on the Bellbirds he seems to have succeeded in capturing some of the wild singers' notes for his poem. He also had the happy gift of being able to paint a scene in a phrase or two. He pictures autumn as a gipsy standing in the gardens splashed from heel to thigh, and winter as a woodman who comes "to lop the leaves in wind and rain," and elsewhere as a departing wearisome guest. Spring is blue-eyed and million-coloured; summer has "large, luxurious eyes," and dances "a shining singer through the tasselled corn," and the wild oak is a wan Tithonus of the wood "aghast at Immortality in chains." In Kendall's poetry there are "notes that unto other lyrics belong, "and there is no doubt that he was influenced by Wordsworth and Tennyson. In one of the prefatory sonnets, in his second book, he excuses the "stray echoes" in these words -

Lo, when a stranger in soft Syrian glooms
   Shot through with sunset, treads the cedar dells,
   And hears the breezy ring of elfin bells
Far down be where the white-haired cataract booms,
   He, faint with sweetness caught from forest smells,
Bears thence, unwitting, plunder of perfumes.

Kendall frequently speaks in his writings of the austere lot that fell to the men of letters of his day, but he seems to have forgotten some of the favours he received. At 21, on the ground of literary promise, he was appointed to a Government clerk ship, and when then promise showed sign of fulfilment he was transferred to a better position, and in after years a special post was created for him by the Government of the day. In the present age the creation of Government posts for favoured individuals is not altogether unheard of, but they are not usually for literary men. His early books were not commercial successes, but better writers had known similar experiences. However, probably no poet whose work has not mean financial gain has found much comfort in the reflection that "Paradise Lost" brought its author only £5. Kendall had, at any rate, the satisfaction of knowing that his poetry was appreciated by all the literary people of Australia - a reward that some of his followers have been denied. Undoubtedly, Kendall suffered a bitter Gethsemane, due to causes quite beyond his control. His inherited weakness brought on him penalties of destitution and suffering, and increased his other unfortunate inheritance of a tempermental melancholy, and it is doubtful if success as a poet would have saved him from the sorrow which was his lot during much of his life.

First published in The Argus, 29 July 1922

Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.

[You can read the rest of the poem quoted here.]

MR. C. J. DENNIS ON COPYRIGHT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARGUS

Sir,-Will you favour me with space in your columns to bring under notice of the public the injustice Australian authors suffer by reason of the manufacturing clause in the United States Copyright Act. In the hope that Mr. Hughes will find time to look into the matter before leaving London. I have cabled the following to him, and quote it because it puts our case in a nutshell:- "William Morris Hughes. Australia House, London. United States authors secure Australian copyright by merely selling a copy of American edition in London. To obtain United States copyright Australian authors must set up, print, and bind in United States. Pray inform Imperial authorities your intention to introduce bill reciprocating United States manufacturing clause. No other course likely bring about settlement in our lifetime."

Foreign authors were unable to secure copyright in the United States until 1891, and were glad, to accept any sort of protection, however inequitable, against the American "pirate" publisher. At that time the United States had few authors worth the attention of the British "pirate" publisher but, it is very different now, as a glance round our bookshops will show. American books are everywhere. Indeed, in 1891 the value of American literary property bore very much the same relation to the British that Australian literary property now does to the American.

The United States will never voluntarily remove this injustice, and negotiation would not bring about a settlement in the lifetime of any living Australian author. But if the Commonwealth Parliament passed an act restricting United States authors' copyright here in the way United States restricts us there, a satisfactory settlement would probably be arrived at within twelve months. At any rate, until Congress gave redress we should have the satisfaction, of knowing that what's sauce for the Australian goose is sauce for the American gander.-Yours, &c.

Toolangi, June 19.

C.J. DENNIS.

First published in The Argus, 21 June 1919.
[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]
William "Billy" Hughes was Prime Minister of Australia from 1915-23.

It seems to have escaped the notice of publishers that in the last two years a new reading public has been created, surely a public with very definite tastes. The antebellum critics used to complain that nearly all novels were written for women. Women alone had time to read fiction extensively, therefore they set the standards and forced the writer to adopt their point of view.

Novelists like Mr. Arnold Bennett and Mr. Wells, even if they did not write entirely about women, wrote of women's interests, and when men of such literary distinction adjusted the scope of their work to the public demand, what could be expected of the regular caterers for the circulating libraries.

It is an undoubted fact that the most popular writers in recent years have been women, and that those whose outlook was masculine and who concerned themselves with the problems of a man's world have found it hard to get a hearing. Mr. Joseph Conrad is probably the most distinguished writer of English fiction to-day; yet, though he is possessed of an attractive style and personality, it is only lately that he has gained any general recognition. Indeed, it was only the publication of "Chance," a book that sparkled with epigrams upon women, that secured him his very mild popularity. Hitherto he had written of the terror and beauty of the sea, of matters of courage and physical endurance, of problems of masculine honour - and apparently the ordinary reader was not interested inthese things.

But a new reading public has been created, an entirely masculine, one. The men in camp and in the trenches form a public quite different from that of the circulating libraries, and we know that their appetite for books is very hearty. Men read now who had little time for reading in their lives before, and gift books are extensively bought for them, especially for Christmas mails. Yet it seems probable that the literary taste of those soldiers in the trenches is quite different from that of their mothers and sisters, and that the writer for men is sure of an audience at last.

One would have thought that some publisher with enterprise and imagination would have taken advantage of the new conditions, but on looking through the Christmas catalogues one does not find any great change. An estalished writer still turns out an annual novel, and there are innumerable books for boys and girls. As far as Australian work is concerned, the dearth of books for men is particularly striking, and surely disappointing, both to our soldiers in the field and to those who send them books. Even publishers, however, may be said to have their lucid intervals, one of which occurred when it was decided to publish, and in every way to spread, the work of Mr. C. J. Dennis. His success of last year has been followed by another, and nobody could call the second book a mere echo of the first. "The Moods of Ginger Mick" might well have been a writer's first - work, for it reads with all the bloom still on it; full of gusto and enthusiasm for its subject. It is obviously, however, the work of a writer who does not rush into book covers, but who throws away probably more work than he completes. In this way Mr. Ezra Pound's literary debut was made 10 years ago. His book of poems in free rhythm was prefaced by an announcement that he had written and burnt three hundred sonnets. One would like to guess that Mr. Dennis had made quite a gallery of studies of Ginger Mick before giving us his portrait.

For it is a portrait we are shown, not a fancy sketch. On the other hand, the figure of Trent may be called a fancy sketch, and one fancies Mr. Dennis would not have presented it without a subconscious realisation of a public other than the one that first gave him his reputation. Ginger Mick from Eastern Market was real to Mr. Dennis, at least in some of his moods. Take the poem "War," the finest in the book, surely a masterly study in hesitation, worked out in the most happy Dennis verse, the cold, straight iambics that he rhymes so unobtrusively and well. Ginger Mick has heard of the war, and is very much annoyed by it; that is the situation. He is annoyed because the idea of the war interferes with his satisfaction in his trade and daily life. He is haunted by the war, asks his friend to give him "the strength of it," and is still more annoyed the more he understands about it. It is like watching a bird fascinated by a snake, but Ginger Mick is a bird who retains most of his will-power, and the poem ends as it began with a repudiation of the war so far as it concerns Ginger Mick, who still shouts, "Rabbee! Wile Rabbee!" The point, which was, of course, implicit in this poem, is that the next begins by informing you that Ginger Mick actually has "mizzled to the war." Mr. Dennis is at his best in such circum stances as these, where his theme is a kind of irony with glimpses of beauly half showing through. The beauty in "War" is implicit and pervasive, far more telling than the decoration flung by handfuls into "A Letter to the Front," about "ole sweet melerdies" and "bird-tork in the gums."

The same kind of power is shown in that ghoulish, ingenious piece, "Rabbits," which is unfortunately marred by a last verse that could only have been meant for the gallery. Ginger Mick is in the trenches on Gallipoli, and feels horribly like a rabbit in a warren. In view of his past life as a rabbit-hawker it is as if he had gone to the next world and suffered retribution in one of the Lower Circles. He thought he had left rabbits behind in Australia, and now it seems to him

"A narsty trick
To shove 'im like a bunny down a 'ole."

He is not so happy in the poems that rely less on restraint and irony than on lyrical force. A lyric, after all, is essentially short, a "swallow-flight of song," and a long poem in a lyrical measure will not, all things being equal, succeed so well as a long poem in a quiet metre. This is a generalisation, and has exceptions; but on the statistics kept by the Muse of Poetry it is shown to be ultimately true. Mr. Dennis's poems are, of course, all long, as poems go, for each one contains a good deal of story and drama, affecting more than one person or one mood. There is a promised unity of mood, certainly, in Ginger Mick's rhapsody about being made "Lance Corperil," comparable for its ecstasy with Christina Rossetti's "My heart is like a singing-bird."

Ginger Mick, however, cannot stop with saving how happy he feels, for he must give you a series of camp pictures, all very good of their kind, but not fit to be packed into a passionate lyric. Further, when he has told you how happy he feels he breaks off to tell you how sad he feels too, and the poem is plainly meditative, contemplative, except for its misleading, dancing metre. This is to say that Mr. Dennis sometimes tries to do too much, to blow from all quarters at once, like the four winds in Virgil. Like all artists he is at his best when he knows his limitations and uses them.

Mr. Will Ogilvie's new book, "The Australian and Other Verses," is less important, for though his technical skill is consider able, most of the freshness has gone out, of his work. It was the spontaneity of his early verses that gave them their undeniable charm. He came to the bush with the fresh eyes of a romantic young Scotchman, and, finding a life that pleased him, he wrote about it with the verve and gaiety of a man who was a dashing horseman as well as a poet. But literature depends on something more than high spirits and a capacity for rhyme. Mr. Ogilvie's emotions and style are alike too facile, and it is to be feared that he has already given us his finest-work. His talent was not quite rich enough to meet all the demands his early popularity made upon it, and even the best of these later verses are merely the shadow of past accomplishments.

First published in The Argus, 11 November 1916
{Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]
The full text of Dennis's The Moods of Ginger Mick is available here.

The last station having been sold, there was no chance of repairing hard fortune by pastoral investment. "Finis poloniae." During my temporary sojourn in Sydney, I fell across a friend, to whom, in my palmy days, I had rendered a service. He suggested that I might return to profitable use of facile pen, and some gift of observation. My friend, who had filled various parts in the drama of life, some of them not undistinguished, was now a professional journalist. He offered to introduce me to his chief (the late Mr. Samuel Bennett), proprietor of the "Town and Country Journal," and did so. That gentleman, whom I shall always remember gratefully for his kind and sensible advice, gave me a commission for certain sketches of bush life, a series of which appeared from time to time. Shortly afterwards, I wrote my first tale, "The Fencing of Wanderoona," succeeding which, the "Squatter's Dream" and others, since published in England, appeared in the weekly paper referred to. Thus launched upon the "wide, the fresh, the ever free" ocean of fiction, I continued to make voyages and excursions theron, mostly profitable, as it turned out. Varied colonial experience, the area of which became enlarged when I was appointed a police magistrate and goldfields commissioner in 1871, supplied types and incidents. This position I filled for nearly twenty-five years.

Although I had, particularly in the early days of my goldfields duties, a sufficiency of hard and anxious work, entailing serious responsibility, I never relinquished the habit of daily writing and story weaving. Nor did I, on that account, neglect my duties, I can fearlessly aver. The constant journeying, riding and driving over a wide district, agreed with my open air habitudes. The method of composition which I employed, though regular, was not fatiguing, and suited a somewhat desultory turn of mind. I arranged for a tale, by sending the first two or three chapters to the editor, and mentioning that it would last a twelvemonth, more or less. Then the matter was settled. I had but to post the weekly packet, and my mind was at ease. I was rarely more than one or two chapters ahead of the printer; yet, in twenty years, I was only once late with my instalment, which had to go by sea, from another colony. Every author has his own way of writing, and this was mine. I never but once completed a story before it was published. And on that occasion it was -- sad to say -- declined by the editor. Not in New South Wales, however, and as it has since appeared in England, it did not greatly signify.

In this fashion, "Robbery Under Arms" was written for the "Sydney Mail," after having been refused by other editors. It has been successful; and, though I say it, there are few countries where the English language is spoken, in which it has not been read. I was always satisfied with the honorarium which my stories yielded. It made a distinct addition to my income, all of which, as a pater-familias, was needed. I looked forward, however, to making a hit some day, and with the publication of "Robbery Under Arms" in England, that day arrived. Other books followed, which have had a gratifying measure of acceptance by the English-speaking public of home and abroad.

As a prophet, I have not been "without honor in my own country." My Australian countrymen have supported me nobly, which I take as an especial compliment, and an expression of confidence, to the effect that, as to Australian matters, I knew what I was writing about.

In all my relations with editors, I am free to confess that I have always been treated honorably. I have had few discouragements to complain of, or disappointments, though not without occasional rubs and remonstrances from reviewers for carelessness, to which to a certain extent, I plead guilty. In extenuation, I may state that I have "hardly ever" had the opportunity of correcting my proofs. As to the attainment of literary success, as to which I often receive inquiries, as also how to secure a publisher, I have always given one answer. Try the Australian weekly papers, if you have any gift of expression, until one of them takes you up. After that the path is more easy. Then perserverance and practice will ordinarily discover the path which leads to success.

A natural turn for writing is necessary, perhaps indispensible. Practice does much, but the novelist, like the poet, is chiefly "born, not made." Even in the case of hunters and steeplechasers, the expression "a natural jumper" is common among travellers. A habit of noting, almost unconsciously, manner, bearing, dialect, tricks of expression, among all sorts and conditions of men, provides "situations." Experience, too, of varied scenes and societies is a great aid. Imagination does much to enlarge and embellish the lay figure, to deepen the shades, and heighten the colors of the picture; but it will not do everything. There should be experience of that most ancient conflict between the powers of Good and evil, before the battle of life can be pictorially described. I am proud to note among my Australian brothers and sisters, of a newer generation, many promising, even brilliant performances in prose and verse. They have my sincerest sympathy, and I feel no doubt as to their gaining in the future, a large measure of acknowledged success.

As to my time method, it was tolerably regular. As early as 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning in the summer, and as soon as I could see in winter, I was at my desk, proper or provisional, until the hour arrived for both bath and breakfast. If at a private house, I wrote in my bedroom. I corrected in the afternoon, when my official duties were over. At home or on the road, as I had much travelling to do, I wrote after dinner until bed-time, making up generally five or six hours a day. Many a good evening's work have I done in one of the clean and quiet, if unpretentious roadside inns, common enough in New South Wales. In winter, with a good fire, and the inn parlor, all to myself or with a sensible companion, I could write until bed-time with ease and comfort. My day's ride or drive might be long, cold enough in winter or hot in summer, but I carried paper, pens, ink, and rarely missed the night's work. I never felt too tired to set to after a wholesome, if simple, meal. Fatigue has rarely assailed me, I am thankful to say, and in my twenty-five years of official service, I was never a day absent from duty, on account of illness, with one notable exception, when I was knocked over by fever, which necessitated sick leave. It has been my experience that in early morning the brain is clearer, the hand steadier, and the mental tone more satisfacory than at any other time of the day.

First published in The Town and Country Journal, 1 October 1898
[The first part of this essay was published last week.]
Wikipedia pages are available for: Boldrewood and Robbery Under Arms

For publication, I mean. Having the pen of a ready writer, by inheritance, I had dashed off occasional onslaughts in the journals of the day, chiefly in defence of the divine right of kings (pastoral ones); I had assailed incoherent democrats, who perversely denied that Australia was created chiefly for the sustenance of sheep and cattle, and the aggrandisement of those heroic individuals who first explored and then exploited the waste lands of the Crown. The school of political belief of which I belonged derided agriculture, and was subsequently committed to a scheme for the formation of the Riverina into a purely pastoral kingdom or colony. A petition embodying a statement to the effect that it was wholly unfitted for the sustenance of a population dependent upon agriculture was forwarded to the Secretary of the Colonies, who very properly disregarded it. The petitioners could not then foresee the stacking of 20,000 bags of wheat, holding four bushels each, awaiting railway transit at one of the farming centres of this barren region in the year 1895. Allied facts caused me to reconsider my very pronounced opinions, and, perhaps, led others to question the accuracy of theirs. My deliverances in the journals of the period occurred in the forties and fifties of the century, and gradually subsided.

I was battling with the season of 1865 on a station lately purchased, at not great distance from the flourishing town of Narrandera, then consisting of two hotels, a small store, and a large graveyard, when an uncertain-tempered young horse kicked me on the ankle with such force and accuracy that I thought the bone was broken. I had ridden at daylight to count a flock of sheep, and could scarcely crawl back to the huts without assistance, such was the agony. I sat down on the frosted ground, and pulled off my boot, knowing how the leg would swell. Curiously the thirst of the wounded soldier immediately atacked me. My room in the slab hut, preceding the brick cottage then in course of erection, was, to use Mr. Swiveller's description, "an airy and well-ventilated apartment." It contained, in addition to joint stools, a solid table, upon which my simple meals of chops, damper and tea were displayed three times a day by a shepherd's wife, an elderly personage of varied and sensational experiences.

I may mention that the great Riverina region was as yet in its unfenced, more or less Arcadian stage, the flocks being "shepherded" (expressive Australian verb, since enlarged as to meaning), and duly folded or camped at night. Something of Mrs. Regan's independent and advanced tone of thought may be gathered from the following dialogue, which I overheard:

Shady township individual - "Your man shot my dorg t'other night. Wot d'yer do that fer?"

Mrs. Regan - "Cause we caught him among the sheep, and we'd a shot you if you'd bin in the same place."

Township individual - "You seem rather hot coffee, missus! I've 'arf a mind to pull your boss next court day for the valley of the dorg."

Mrs. Regan - "You'd better clear out and do it then. The P.M.'s a comin' from Wagga on Friday, and he'll give you three months, like as not. Ask the pleece for yer character."

Township individual - "D---n you and the pleece, too! A pore man gets no show between the traps an squatters in this bloomin' country. Wish I'd never seen it!"

This was by way of interlude, serving to relieve the monotony of the situation. I could eat, drink, smoke, and sleep. But my injured leg -- worse than broken -- I could not put to the ground. Neither had I company of any kind nor description, save that of old Jack and Mrs. Regan, for a whole month. So, casting about for occupation, I bethought myself that I might write something for an English magazine. The subject I pitched upon was a description of a kangaroo drive or battue, such as were then common in Western Victoria, which I had lately quitted. The kangaroo had become so numerous that they were eating the squatters out of house and home. Something had to be done; so they were driven into yards in great numbers and killed. This severe mode of dealing with the too prolific marsupial in whole battalions, I judged correctly, would be among the "things not generally known" to the British public.

I sat down and wrote a twelve-page article describing a grand muster for the purpose at a station about twenty miles from Port Fairy, and seven miles from my own place, Squattlesea Mere.

The first time I went to Melbourne I posted it, with the aid of my good friend, the late Mr. Mullen, to the editor of the "Cornhill Magazine," and thought no more about the matter. A few days afterwards, my neighbour, Adam M'Neill, of North Yanko, hearing of my invalid state, rode over, and carried me off to his hospitable home. I had to be lifted on my horse, but after a month's rest and recreation was well enough to return to my pastoral duties. I was lame, however, for quite a year afterwards, and narrowly escaped injuring the other ankle, which began to show signs of over-work.

Just about the time of my full recovery, I received a new "Cornhill Magazine" and a business-like note from Messrs. Smith and Elder, forwarding a draft, which added to the honor and glory of seeing my article flourishing in a first-class English magazine, afforded me much joy and satisfaction. The English review notices were also cheering. I thereupon dashed off a second sketch, entitled "Shearing in Riverina," which I dispatched to the same address. The striking presentment of seventy shearers, in a big Riverina shed, all going their hardest, was a novelty also to the British public.

The constant clash that the shear-blades make
When the fastest shearers are making play,

The station was sold in the adverse pastoral period of '68-69, through drought, debt, financial "dismalness of sorts," but that is another story. Christmas time found me in Sydney, where it straightaway began to rain with unreasonable violence and persistency, (as I thought), now it could do me no good; never left off, in fact, for five years. The which, in plenteousness of pasture, and high prices for wool and stock, were the most fortunate seasons for squatters since the "fifties," with their accompanying goldfields prosperity.

First published in The Town and Country Journal, 1 October 1898
[The second part of this essay will be published next week.]

[This piece continues our reprints from The Bulletin from 1908. This was written in response to the magazine's call for nominations for the position of Australian poet laureate.]

I am not sure whether you mean by "poet laureate" the most popular poet, the writer of the best patriotic poetry, or the best poet. (We mean the best poet.) If popularity is the prime qualification, the matter could be settled at once by a reference to publishers' statistics, and A.B. Paterson would be found easily first. If, however, you are inquiring what poet fills a similar position in Australia to that of the Poet Laureate in England, one remembers that Pye, Wharton, Alfred Austin, and others, have helped to wither the laurel that was green on the brows of Dryden, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, and assumes that the title of Poet Laureate does not really connote much more than Purveyor of Odes to the Royal Family -- By Special Appointment. The analogous position in Australia is, I think, already filled by Essex Evans, who writes patriotic exhortations quite as well as Alfred Austin, and whose other work is graced, here and there, by a touch of poetry. But if you really want to know who is the best poet in australia, that's not so easy to answer. There is no precedent for a woman holding the laureate-ship in England, but that would not matter in Australia. There are about eight or nine women to be reckoned with; but I hardly think there are in the first flight. Their quality might be represented by cordials -- Ada Cambridge, ginger-beer with bitters; Louise Mack, cider; but Jessie Mackay (I take it for granted that Maorilanders are included in the survey) sometimes rises to the heights of sparkling burgundy. Bayldon, Church, Essex Evans, Loughran, O'Hara, and Ross I class together as capable versifiers, with more or less frequent poetic gleams -- good stout with a dash. Jephcott, O'Dowd, and Hugh McCrae are stronger, more imaginative, but not always artistic -- whisky is about their measure. A.H. Adams, Brereton, Hebblethwaite and A.T. Strong are better artists, yet want some high energising purpose to make them produce poetry that is really worth while -- wine, with some bouquet but little body. If Roderic Quinn had written nothing more than The Hidden Tide, and C. Brennan had published something more than XXI Poems - Towards the Source, it might be the right thing to divide the wreath between them, for one had the rare champagne quality and the other resembles green chartreuse. These are all splendid drinks on occasion; but there is no doubt that as a steady tipple there is nothing like Beer. For this we go to our ballad writers -- except two, E.J. Brady and Will Lawson, whose work has the tang of rum. Paterson is often finer than beer, Ogilvie has sometimes a flavor of old vatted mountain mist; but taking this class as a whole, their work has the unvarying appeal, and gives the glow and nourishment, and gets one forrarder to the extent of Beer. It seems to me that our best and most representative poet is to be found amongst these, and I give my vote for one who has not much of "the faculty" but a good deal of "the vision," an unconscious artist whose work, with all its faults, is instinct with life and purpose -- Henry Lawson.

First published in The Bulletin, 23 April 1908

Notes: Wikipedia pages are accessible for:
A.H. Adams
Arthur Bayldon
E.J. Brady
Christopher Brennan
Ada Cambridge
Hubert Church
George Essex Evans
Henry Lawson
Hugh McCrae
Louise Mack
Bernard O'Dowd
Will Ogilvie
A.B. Paterson

See the previous postings in this sequence: July 25 August 1
August 22

So yer got er competishun going for pote loorets? Well, Im goin to ave a vote anyhow, though I dont like potry; its pretty an all that sort, but it wastes all its blanky time tryin to be pretty stead of sayin somethin. Its like a bloke wot as a few acres er good land goin usen most of it for a pretty flower gardin stead of plantin crops or cabbages right up to is bloomin front door, as e oughter. Some blokes, like Grant Hervey, seems to think as how yer cant even ask Australia to shut its back-gate an clean up its gun ready for the Japs without making yer bloomin request rhime pretty. Fancy torkin to a great country erbout its ennemys in the same silly kinder sing-song way as yer tell the kids erbout the kow jumpin over the moon or Marys little lamb follerin er erbout! Now, I arst yer strate, owd it be if I was to wake me boy in the mornin like this: "Rise up, Bill! go milk the kows, and get to the creamery by nine somehows"? Hed think Id gone fair off me bloomin onion. An very likely e wouldnt know it was potry at all, cause e wouldnt know it should be written in two lines. Anyhow, if yer must give yer tin halo to someone, youd better give it to Hugh McCrae, because he dont write often, and when he does its generally somethin short. I like "Kodak" pretty well too, because I dont think he really
berleeves e is a pote; I think es pullin the other pote blokes legs, and chuckin off at them all the time. Hes good too, because he owns up to the way potes ave to dodge the bailiffs, and ow they never pay their board. Id do me best to make all the other potes qualify for that other kinder wreath -- the white un, like a life-belt, wot they gives yer to wear goin over the Jordan. Yours trooly,

NITTY ARÆMO

First published in The Bulletin, 23 April 1908

You can read poems by Grant Hervey here, here, here, and here.
You can read poems by "Kodak" here, here, and here.
I haven't transcribed any poems by Hugh McCrae as yet.
See the previous postings in this sequence: July 25 August 1.

The feature of this week's contribution to the question of the head which will fit the tin hat of Australasian poesy is the astonishing boom of Grant Hervey. It may humbly be pointed out, in answer to Harrison Owen, that the Australasian Laureate will not be a political, but a poetical, appointment. If England likes to give an Awful Austin a tun of wine, that is England's concern. The title deeds of that topmost selection on Mount Parnassus-Kosciusko will be presented to the best poet -- as Poet -- in Australasia, provided he is not too dead. The hardware wreath is for "the best of the splendid Australasian band of poets."

Many other contributions are held over. Advocates must be brief.

The Poet of Politics

Some readers of the gore-colored page may be rather surprised at my tip for the Poet Laureate Stakes, though I doubt not that it will also find many backers. Let me here point out that the editor in his unlimited wisdom has asked: "Who is the best of the splendid Australasian band of poets?" The office of poet-laureate -- in the Cold Country, at any rate -- has always been a sort of semi-political "grip". Thus, in the lifetime of A. Swinburne, the billet is filled by A. Austin. Swinburne is undoubtedly a greater poet, but he is utterly unsuited for the job of laureate. The poet-laureate, I take it, should voice the political ideals and aspirations of the Nation, leaving such articles as sunsets, gloamings, love and snow-capped peaks to be dealt with by brother bards. A. Swinburne is "hot stuff" when it comes to sunsets and so forth, but, being a republican, he could not voice the political ideals of a people confessing to a limited monarchy and a
House of Lords. Swinburne's Republicanism would offend the Cold Country -- as it did the late Victoria -- but Austin's tripe, such as "How Can I Best Serve My King?" pleases it. Thus in considering the claims of our various bards to the Tin Laurel Wreath, we should, I think, ask ourselves: Who is it who best voices our political ambitions and ideals? To which I reply -- Grant Hervey. That Australia possesses greater poets must be obvious to all who have made even a cursory study of Australian verse; Quinn, Daley, Adams, Lawson (whose claims are sure to be advocated by many), and perhaps half-a-dozen others have reached a higher poetic level; but none of these, I venture to say, have so consistently and eloquently voiced the staunch political creed of the Australian Democracy. A firm believer in a White Australia, a stalwart Protectionist, a loyal Democrat, a staunch Australian patriot, and -- last but not least - a Man, is Grant
Hervey. If a selected volume of his verse were published, Britishers and foreigners, by reading it, would learn of our political ideals and our sturdy democratic creed. I do not say that all of Hervey's work is admirable; some of it, I think, would have been better unwritten; he had produced some poor stuff -- as did also W. Shakespeare -- but the great bulk of his work is of a very high order. I know of no other bard who can infuse the same grandeur and terrible earnestness into a political poem as can Hervey. His lofty style disinguishes his poetry from the ordinary political rhymes we all know so well. He is already admired by many sturdy Australians, and he has every right, I consider, to the paltry Tin Laurel Wreath. Failing G.H., I should say Essex Evans, but at present I shriek for Grant Hervey every time.

First published in The Bulletin, 23 April 1908

Notes:

• this piece follows on from a similar essay that was posted last week on this weblog.
  
• Grant Hervey's Australian Dictionary of Biography webpage.
  
• You can read poems by Grant Hervey here, here, here, and here. Although it should be pointed out that these are not examples of his political works.
  
• The phrase "gore-colored page" refers to the section of The Bulletin titled "The Red Page", which was, in fact, printed on garish red paper and acted as a wrapper for the main part of the magazine. This section contained - in the inside pages - book reviews, literary essays, poetry and literary news. At this time it was being edited by Arthur Henry Adams, who probably wrote the introductory paragraph.
  
• Algernon Charles Swinburne Wikipedia page.
  
• Alfred Austin Wikipedia page.
  

The future Australian poet laureate, like a resurrected Don Quixote, came ambling along the straight in the Mount Parnassus Stakes bestride a woeful Pegasus suffering from incipient locomotor ataxia and just a soupçon of pareisis of the wings. The spectators, pale in the face and palpitating with excitement, surged forward to get a glimpse of the
winner's number. Yells of approval, or execration, or silence, or something, rent the air when The Bulletin laurel wreath (tin) was handed down from its nail and duly delivered, under protest, to Roderic Joseph Quinn to have and to hold or wear for the term of his natural life. The judge, with youth, a sound constitution, and careful nursing, pulled round. Will Ogilve was disqualified at the starting gate for not being more careful in the choice of his parents and birthplace.

Quinn, the winner, is never likely to be mistaken by fervid admirer or carping critic for a Byron or a Shelley, or have an orchestra stall kept warm for him among the noble army of immortals.

He handles his subjects daintily, and possesses an instinctive rightness of touch which covers a multitude of sins. His style bristles with subtlety and suggestions and tone, and his imagery and skilful word-painting appeal to the ear, if not to the heart, of the discriminating reader. There is such animation and suppleness in his adroit turn of phrase, and his color sense is so well defined and true, that one can overlook the absence of profundity and Promethean fire, at times so apparent, and be content to sit back lulled to rest by the sweet melody of his singing.

Moreover, he is of Australia, Australian. Not in the blatant, State-rights, Wild Colonial Boy manner of some of our popular balladists, but in a more dignifed and subdued style, which forecasts the advent of a newer and more refined phase in the evolution of our national literature. There are three verses in his "Lotus Flower" which always appeal to me as a typical sample of his work:-

"The Lotus dreams 'neath the dreaming skies,
   Its beauty touching with spell divine
The grey old town, till the old town lies
   Like one half-drunk with a magic wine.

"Star-loved, it breathes at the midnight hour
   A sense of peace from its velvet mouth.
Though flowers be fair -- is there any flower
   Like this blue flower of the radiant South?

"Sun-loved and lit by the moon, it yields
   A challenge-glory or glow serene.
And men bethink them of jewelled shields,
   A turquoise lighting a ground of green."

First published in The Bulletin, 16 April 1908

Roderic Quinn's Australian Dictionary of Biography webpage.
Posts about Quinn on Matilda.
And you can read more of Quinn's poems on Sydney University's SETIS website [PDF file].

The public memory is notoriously short, and the brief mention in the press this week of the passing of Arthur Tauchert was probably passed over by the many while it recalled to a few some vague memories of the one outstanding Australian triumph that was associated with his name.

Arthur Tauchert was an actor of sorts -- not a celebrated actor in any sense -- but one who, through a fortunate circumstance, fitted into a character role for which he was pre-eminently suited.

When we were selecting the cast for the silent film version of "The Sentimental Bloke" we had much difficulty in choosing exactly the right type of man to play the leading part. Finally, after many had been considered and rejected, the producer, Mr Raymond Longford, wrote me from Sydney that he had happened upon an ideal man to play the Bloke. With the letter came a photograph of Tauchert and a brief sketch of his stage career. I was not impressed, either by the photograph or the history.

Although more or less in touch with theatrical events, I had never heard of the man before, and the face that looked out at me from the picture was certainly unlike any film hero I had ever seen or imagined.

Fortunately, I realised in time that the producer knew more about his business than I did, and I replied half-heartedly accepting the choice.

The film had been completed and cut before I had my first opportunity of having a pre-view in Adelaide, in company with the local sharebrokers, newspaper men and squatters who had taken a sporting chance and put up the money to back the filming of the "Bloke".

My first glimpse of Tauchert on the screen filled me with dismay. His decidedly homely, not to say ugly features, his ungainly deportment, his crude efforts to achieve pathos struck me in the beginning as the last word in clumsy amateurism. Then, as shot followed shot, as reel followed reel, I found myself forgetting all these things and the sheer sincerity of the man's acting overspread and dominated every palpable fault in technique, until I found myself in complete sympathy.

And not myself alone; for, at the end of the film, the rather large audience of film people and professional actors - including Mr Frank Harvey, I remember -- who had been invited to the private view, rose to rain congratulations upon all connected with the production. They declared enthusiastically that we had an undoubted "winner".

What a winner it eventually proved to be is now ancient history. And I still believe that by far the greater part of the success was due to the wholehearted sincerity of Arthur Tauchert.

It was not until two years later, after I had met Tauchert in the flesh, that I solved the riddle of his peculiar attraction in the film. He had not merely acted the Bloke -- he was the Bloke, and, by an extraordinary coincidence, might have been the very man upon whom I modelled the character.

Like the Sentimental Bloke, he had been wild and uncontrolled in his early youth. Pubs and two-up schools had known much of him. Again, like the Bloke, and most amazing coincidence of all, he had really met and married his Doreen, whose influence had weaned him from dissolute ways, until he had become, even as the Bloke, a self-respecting member of reputable society.

In that film Tauchert did not merely play the part; he played his own life over again and so achieved that remarkable sincerity that could never have come from artistry alone.

Poor old Arthur. Even until the end he could never quite understand why, despite his growing baldness and other evidence of age, I would not consent to his playing the Bloke in every subsequent interpretation of the part. I really believe that, after his success with the role, not only in Australia, but in England as well, he ceased to be Arthur Tauchert, but became, and remained until the finish, the only real "Sentimental Bloke."

I saw little of him in those later years; but the sudden and unexpected news of his passing affected me quite as much as if I had lost an old and valued friend. Arthur had little to answer for at the judgement seat, for, despite many hectic experiences and an environment that tends to "toughness," he remained always strangely unsophisticated and, in the true Australian sense, ever a "dinkum bloke."

First published in The Herald, 30 November 1933

[Note: Arthur Tauchert featured in the 1919 silent-film version of "The Sentimental Bloke", which you can see here.]

Rather more than a year ago (B. 16/1/'57) I made some mildly critical remarks about David Low's references to C. J. Dennis's "Australaise." My point was that Den did not, in fact, label his verses "The Austra-bloody-aise," nor did he use the adjective in any verse or the chorus; and, moreover, he did not write "Pull yer bloody pants on, tie yer bloody boots," but "Shift yer --- carcasses. Move yer --- boots."

Now, a trifle belatedly, I've received a note on the subject from Dave Low in London. He says that an Australian friend sent him as a Christmas-present a copy of my Dennis biography, The Making of a Sentimental Bloke, with "The Bulletin" article tipped-in, and he suggests that I've fallen into error in my comments upon him.

As to "The Australaise," Low didn't dispute my corrections of his quotations, but says that he and his friends always sang the verses with "bloody" filling-in the blanks. So, of course, did the Diggers of World War I. But the fact remains that Den didn't use that word in print - he suggested (maybe with tongue in cheek) that where a dash replaced a missing word the adjective "blessed" might be interpolated, and that in cases demanding great emphasis the use of the word "bloomin-" was permissible.

When I did fall into error, it would seem, was when, in commenting on the scanty nature of Low's references to the writers and artists of his Melbourne period (as given in his reminiscences published serially in "The Bulletin"), I asked had he forgotten Garry Roberts and his wife, "that warm-hearted couple who entertained him and his colleagues at Sunnyside, Kallista, over a long period," I also asked if he had forgotten the rich talk of Tom Roberts, Web Gilbert, John Shirlow and, among others, Harold Herbert.

Actually, Low went to Melbourne to live (so he tells me) in 1914, and therefore had no part in Roberts's "Sunnyside Circle." He says he never met Tom Roberts or Web Gilbert and was only slightly acquainted with John Shirlow and Harold Herbert. "Garry Roberts," it is added, "I thought of as a friend of Gye and Dennis; I was his guest at Sunnyside only once."

My impression that Low used to be a regular Sunnysider was due, firstly, to the fact that some members of "the Circle" often referred to him as one of their number, and secondly, to the fact that Den commemorated him, along with Hal Gye and Garry Roberts in verses which he wrote around "Ingavar."

Ingavar was a property near Sunnyside which Roberts had rented for his son Frank (the lad who later served Web Gilbert as the model for the figure of the Australian soldier on Mount St. Quentin, where he died in September of 1918), and it so called because it had formerly belonged to fellows named Ingless and Avard.

Den produced at least two sets of merry verses (both little known) centring upon Ingavar. Here's a sample of one of them, featuring Garry Roberts (the "Lord High Pot" of the area), Hal Gye and Den himself:-

Loud laughed ye mockinge dead-wode tree:
Goe search ye neere, and seeke ye far,
I wot in vaine your quest will bee
For him, ye Potte of Ingavar.

In armoure clad and cap-a-pie
Ye stout Sir Hal rode thro' ye glen,
And by hys side, wi' flashing eye,
Rode galantlee ye Lorde of Den . . .

O, the trees grow straight and the trees grow tall,
And the trees grow all around;
And the long limbs sprout the trunks about
Where the Davlo Owl is found.
And the Davlo bird is most absurd
In the early days of June -
For he sings this song, the whole day long,
To a strange, fantastic tune -

"O, ink, ink, ink! I sit and think
I brood on the Wildwood Tree;
But, near or far, on Ingavar,
No ink, no ink I see.
And late or soon, the swift Cartoon
Must soar to the Utmost Star -
O, ink, ink, ink! I swoon! I sink!
O, inkless Ingavar!"

The Davlo hoots, the Halgi toots,
The Denawk swoops no more,
Alone to yearn, the Nude Nocturn
Adorns your leafy floor.
But trees, O, trees, what ectasies
Thrill thro' you, root and spar,
When the Lord High Pot comes up to squat
In the glades of Ingavar,
       Afar,
Green glades of Ingavar!

First published in The Bulletin, 19 February 1958

This piece follows the extract from David Low's autobiography, and Alec Chisholm's first response to that extract, both published here over the past two weeks.

You can read the full text of the poem Ingavar.

Dave Low has got off the beam, probably through trusting to memory instead of looking up readily-available references, in regard to C.J. Dennis's "Australaise". Den certainly did not label his verses "The Austra-bloody-laise," nor did he use the adjective in any verse or the chorus; and moreover he did not write "Pull yer bloody pants on, tie yer bloody boots," but "Shift yer --- carcasses, Move yer --- boots."

"The Australaise" was first published ("With some acknowledgements to W.T. Goodge") in THE BULLETIN of November 12, 1910. Then entitled "A Real Australian Austra--laise," it consisted of four verses and a chorus, and it won its author a special prize in a National Song Competition, promoted by THE BULLETIN, which drew 74 entries.

In further comment, the judge suggested that "The Australaise" would gain "immediate popularity" because it would "go to the swing of the 'Merry Widow' waltz"; but in fact (as far as I know) that air was never adopted. Instead Den borrowed a more rousing melody - he issued "The Australaise" in 1915, in the form of a leaflet containing seven verses and chorus, as "A Marching Song," and he suggested that it be sung to the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers." That suggestion accorded with the ideas of the lads of the A.I.F. (for whom, chiefly, the leaflet was issued), and so they learned to bawl, not only the first but the last of the verses:-

Fellers of Australier,
   Cobbers, chaps an' mates,
Hear the --- German
   Kickin' at the gates!
Blow the --- bugle,
   Beat the --- drum,
Upper-cut an' out the cow
   To kingdom- --- -come!

Reprinted from THE BULLETIN with alterations. Where a dash replaces a missing word, the adjective "blessed" may be interpolated. In cases demanding great emphasis, the use of the word "blooming" is permissible. However, any other word may be used that suggests itself as suitable.

Aside for Low's error regarding "The Australaise," plus a minor one touching Den's latter-day home at Toolangi (which was not "the same house, rebuilt magnificently," as his original shabby old dwelling), what surprises me in the cartoonist's narrative is the scanty nature of his reminiscences of the writers and artists of his Melbourne period.

Has David forgotten Garry Roberts and his wife, that warm-hearted couple who entertained him and his colleagues at Sunnyside, Kallista, over a long period? Has he forgotten the rich talk of Tom Roberts, Web Gilbert, and John Shirlow, to say nothing of the pranks and quick-witted quips of Hal Gye (who, with Low himself, is the only member of the Sunnyside group now living), Harold Herbert, Bob Croll and Guy Innes, as well as those of the author of "The Australaise"?

When collecting material for the Dennis biography I gathered at second-hand (for I was not in Victoria in the period under discusison) quite a lot of fruity and amusing material relating to the Sunnyside circle in general and Den in particular, and thus it was reasonable to expect from Low, as a member of the group, additional material in kind - one of the brightest literary-artistic circles known to Australia.

David has not, for instance recalled the quaint error he made when illustrating Den's Backblock Ballads. Nor, to mention just one other snappy item, has he told us about the rice-pudding, complete with basin, which he took to the Melbourne railway-station and presented to Den and his bride when, in 1917, they were starting on their honeymoon.

Is it too late for Low to do a spot of amending and amplifying? An hour of two of meditation, I imagine, would be quite worthily productive, and if memory fails on any point it could be jogged by that sprightly combination of artist and writer, Hal Gye.

Alec Chisholm (N.S.W.)

First published in The Bulletin, 16 January 1957

Note: this essay was written in response to an extract from David Low's Autobiography, that was being published in "The Bulletin" at the time.
You can read the full text of the poem "The Australaise".

I did not pack my bags to go [from New Zealand] without sorrow at leaving many friends. As a small boy the opinions, too often comtemptuous, of outsiders on my choice of a profession had driven me into a defensive solitariness. As a youth, although I became gregarious enough to be socially at case in the world, I had continued to cultivate a private self-sufficiency and was wary of complicating loyalties and dependent friendships. In my early twenties, when not the window so to speaks I could stand my own company for long stretches without discontent. But for all that, in those black depressions which follow over-concentration, when all work seems fruitless, bad, waste of time, when the mind rattles like a pea in a hollow drum, and confidence is replaced by despair, I imagined with longing a second self that could know what one was at and estimate truly the success or failure of the attempt. At such times what a priceless boon would be a clear-headed outside judge, to whom one could toss one's piece with 'Good or bad?' and accept the verdict with confidence as from one familiar with the conditions of creation.

In Melbourne I was fortunate enough to count two. I shared a studio with Hal Gye, caricaturist, and C. J. Dennis, poet, was our inseparable. Before settling in Melbourne I lived as a fellow-lodger with Den for a space and finished my cartoons by night on his wash-stand while he read proofs aloud in bed. After that, Hal and I took our studio, and Hal arranged to illustrate Den's book. Thus the association was confirmed.

Hal was a fantastic chap, thin, with long hair parted in the middle, a way of waving his arms about and an irresistible wit. When he wasn't drawing theatrical caricatures for the Bulletin, or illustrating Den, he was painting water-colour symphonies with a dreamy effect which he produced by losing his temper with them and putting them under the tap. After the second jet of water the picture almost disappeared leaving plenty to the imagination, which pleased mightily those who had the imagination. Den's chief claim to fame at first was that he was the author of the Austrabloodylaise, a vernacular piece known far and wide in Australia, of which the opening stanza gives the flavour:

Fellers of Australia, blokes and coves and coots,
Pull yer bloody pants on, tie yer bloody boots.

Here were a couple of characters in whose company I found rest and understanding. We could laugh, shout, sing, exult, mourn, curse the wrongdoer in the open, as we wrestled with our work. (I was always one to talk to my work as it came out on my old drawing-board perched on a broken arm-chair.) Our trio expanded into an odd mixture of fellowship. Painters, poets and writers, of course, actors, farmers, civil servants, business men, politicians, an occasional Cabinet Minister, and on one red-letter day even Melba herself, the immortal song-bird. All I remember of her was that she was a bullying woman who ate a good deal and swore a lot. It was all one. Even on the blackest days I found relief in that pool of goodwill. In no other company could I ever have tried the experiment of sharing a studio. I have had many since, but all by comparison have had a touch of loneliness.

From Low's Autobiography by David Low, Michael Joseph 1956, pp78-79

In Edward Dyson's work there are few of the qualities that make for permanency and many of the weaknesses that ensure oblivion. It cannot be said that he was a great writer, even in a literature of which the adjective has always to be used at the critic's peril. Yet there is none of his representative work which, if it were being written now, would not brighten any paper that published it. His best book, Fact'ry 'Ands, has importance above the fact that it bred the Sentimental Bloke, and also above its unattractive title.

In the more popular The Golden Shanty Dyson's faults are most glaringly apparent. Scarcely anybody in it has real life, and the narrative content is slight, except in the title story, a whimsical fancy not at all badly handled. Generally, it is surface stuff, and the efforts to get under the surface here and there develop, as in "Mr. and Mrs. Sin Fat," into melodrama, or merely leave the impression, as in "After the Accident," of piling on the agony. Most of the humor, too, depends on polysyllabic meanderings such as:-

...his ever-watchful eye is open to detect an opportunity, however trifling, of increasing his diurnal income, and when he espies a goose, obese and matronly, making frantic endeavours to squeeze her portly form through a small aperture in a fowl-house behind a private residence, his soul is instantly fired with a desire to possess her -- to call her his own, if only for a few hours.

To succeed fairly well from the breadwinner's point of view, as a semi-detached contributor in Australian journalism, this machine-like productiveness is essential. Quantity pays better than quality...

The Australia Dyson specialised in was that of the worked-out Victorian goldfields, about which he himself fossicked before he was eleven, "wagging it" for the purpose. Though his pen never sank deeply into the character of his bush people, they live very clearly in a surface fashion, and the dirt on their boots is not all that is peculiarly Australian about them. The Golden Shanty and much of Dyson's swinging but indifferent verse came from that goldfields' fossicking, of which easily the best find was the knowledge he acquired of the coolie Chinese, whom he hated, and who have their bland revenge in being the truest creations in this section of his work. Here and elsewhere he wrote directly from experience -- a trifle too directly. At 12½ he was "assistant and housekeeper with a hawker of drygoods," doing the mining fields and navvies' camps, experience that broke out in the farce of Tommy the Hawker.

The work that seems to me easily his best, the abominably titled one, also came directly from experience; two or three years of his youth were spent in a Melbourne factory. There is a remarkable difference in the styles of The Golden Shanty and this book. Instead of the long wordspinning there is brisk and even snappy statement. Merely, "He suggested an amorous adjutant bird," conveys Mr. Ellis. The style is sustained:-

The idea of Fuzzy as a lover was the acme of the incongruous; he was so arid, so nervous, so thin, and so unhuman. No one had any idea of his age, but he looked like a man who had dried up at the age of thirty-six, and had since been free of all human infirmities...

That afternoon Fuzzy gave Sarah a brooch. It was of an ancient device, and had lost a stone, but was large and had some value as old gold... "You do so grow on a body," she whispered one morning, and this excited Fuzzy to such a degree that he was bumping into things three hours later.

First published in The Bulletin, 9 September 1931

[Note 1: Edward Dyson died on 22 August 1931.
Note 2: To the best of my knowledge there have only been two editions of Fact'ry 'Ands - the original George Robertson edition from 1906 which contained 18 of the stories, and the 1921 NSW Bookstall Company edition which included only 12 stories. The latest copy of the first edition I've seen was priced at $125. So it's not a book that's easy to get a hold of in printed form. You can, however, go to our friends at Project Gutenberg Australia where a number of Dyson's works are available, and download a copy of this book from there.]

As yet we have in Australia no hard and fast rule for the handling of the vernacular in fiction. Our writers are merely feeling their way, each tackling the question in his own fashion. The results are interesting.

In speech it is often necessary to set out the speech of the uncultured, the ungrammatical, the fellow who drops his "h's" and his "g's" and murders vowel sounds. How should such speech be printed in good fiction? Plain dialect is easy enough, for it is definite, but the vernacular is not dialect. If the navvy or the bullocky has to say, in his own way, "I am going to believe what you say," the author may print it just like that; or like this, "I ain't gunna b'lieve whatcher say"; or he may be content with a mere indication, "I ain't going to believe what you say."

The second and literal interpretation is the most exact one, but it does not follow that it is the best. It is overdone and it offends the eye. And it is quite unnecessary. The third version, I would maintain, expresses all that needs to be expressed. I do not agree with writers who bar entirely all interference with spelling to attain the vernacular, relying only upon phrasing and rhythm to express the speech of the uneducated. That is sometimes enough, but not always. It tends to make the newsboy talk like the professor, and both like the author himself. Whatever is still debatable, it is certain that all the ins and outs of a man's lingo need not and must not be followed to get strict accuracy. Edward Dyson does this, and the result is horrible. Here is a bit from "Fact'ry 'Ands":-

Ther graft wasn't what yeh'd call 'ard, 'n' it suited me complaint t' lie there 'n' lurk, waiting fer ther little lydies 'n' ther stout gents ter 'it ther pipe.

The truth is that a writer can get the effect he wants by phraseology and choice of words, with only an occasional resort to home-made phonetic spelling. That he can get it without bad spelling at all is a question worthy of debate. I believe that he cannot. A correctly-printed phrase like "Me and Billo had a pint" expresses your prolétaire at once; there is no need to print it: "Me an' Billo 'ad er pint." I think it would be bad art to do so.

I should say that the dropping of the hard initial "h" and of the "g" at the end of present participles is justified. So are "me" for "my," "ain't" for "are not," and a very few more. But one sees much otherwise excellent prose ruined by the overdoing of the vernacular, till dialogue reads like a Penny Comic. "Ther" for "the," "ter" for "to," "orl" for "all," and such horrors are never justified and never effective because there are never so spoken, if the letter "r" has any value at all. Your rough diamond might say "Oh lor!" but no one ever said "Gord" or "arsk" or "tork."

Our writers of fiction are still uncertain about the slurred "you." We see it written as "y'," "yer," and "yeh," and so on, and perhaps the first is the least of these evils. They seem unnecessary because we all slur small words. We all occasionally say "o'" for of, "t'" for to, "th'" for the, "an'" or "'n'" for and. Why then torture and uglify the text with such letterpress contortions?

First published in The Bulletin, 14 August 1929

The literary taste of Bushland is about as capricious as the whim of the young lady who ring-fences her nether limbs with a crinoline to-day and to-morrow tethers them with a hobble skirt. When I first encountered Bill Bushman he was a thinker and a reader of solid intellectual works (hot from the press preferred). The Conflicts of Science and Religion, Buckle's History of Civilization, Das Kapital, Looking Backward, Cæsar's Column and Progress and Poverty would generally be found in every Bush humpy. I have refused an offer of a pound for a two-bob copy of Max Nordau's Conventional Lies of Our Civilization at a time when a good horse saddle and bridle could be purchased for that sum. THE BULLETIN was B.B.'s Bible, and he would do a silent 20-mile ride weekly for that pink Abomination. The Lawson, "Banjo" and Dyson sprang up; and he became transformed from a moody thinker into a bellicose reciter of The Man From Snowy River, Trooper Campbell and so forth. Suddenly and without any visible signs of insanity, he developed a mania for the light, breezy, sensational literature of the Deadwood Dick persuasion, which he consumed for breakfast, dinner and tea. Under the Deadwood influence he hailed the passing wayfarer as "Pard," and talked wildly of "getting the drop" on the obese representative of Vested Interests collecting his unearned indictment of a Monday morning. The Deadwood Dick delirium paved the way for a still lower depth of mental prostration, and we find Bill eventually landed among the worshippers of Nat Tripe, alias Gould. Offer the Bushman of to-day his choice of, say, The Boy in the Green and The Cloister and the Hearth, and he will go bald-headed for the former. Gould is of Australian writers the best seller. "Steele Rudd" second. Dyson is the best bookweaver Australia has produced. One does Gould an honor in comparing him with Dyson. The latter's writings are more racy (not more horsey) than Gould's, and more spontaneously humorous than Rudd's. And he is considerably more intellectual and versatile than Davis and Gould rolled into one. Yet in the Bush one rarely meets a Dyson book. A good seller, he finds his audience in the towns and cities where the booklover abides and where frequently the ciculating library displays a catalogue of works best and new as well as choice and old. I admit that I have reluctantly come to the opinion that Bill Bushman of to-day is a literary degenerate. Half an hour's analysis of a Gould hero, and a five minute survey of the ARROW or the HAWKLET, and you can put the plumbob on his mental calibre straight away. He is a different personality altogether to the Bushman of yore. And, his blatant-voiced Unionism notwithstanding, would be if called on to-day put up the fight that the silent saturine Democrats of the nineties did on
behalf of a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. I don't think.

First published in The Bulletin, 12 June 1913

[Note: very definitely a pseudonym.]

Good short stories are rare, because the short story demands practically all the literary qualities. In particular it calls for a very high development of the narrative faculty. A fairly good novel can be written with very little exercise of this faculty, for example, Galsworthy's "Country House" or Bennett's "Clayhanger." A character is caught in some attitude, say, kneeling at prayer or adding up figures in a ledger, and by an exhaustive catalogue of his thoughts and surroundings a vivid representation is achieved. In the next chapter he is caught in another attitude, and so on.

The short story, however, can never be static; it must be dynamic. It demands that different scenes and events be fused together in a swift flow of narrative, and that there be a unity as definite as that of a good lyric. The difference between the novel and the short story can best be illustrated by the image of a house. A novel can explore the inner rooms and the inhabitants' history at its leisure. A short story, however, must place the reader outside, raise the blind of one room for a moment and then lower it. Obviously the important thing is that the blind should be raised at the right moment, when the revealing incident is taking place.

There is no better way of learning how to write a short story than studying the best models. A few can be hinted at: Tolstoy's "The Duchess," Kipling's "The Man Who Would be King," Maupassant's "Boule de Suif," Lawson's "Telling Mrs. Baker," Gorky's "Twenty-Six Men and a Girl," Ambrose Bierce's "The Affair at Coulter's Ridge."

First published in Birth, March 1917.

Bright blaze the stars, the night is dark
   As down the roads of heaven they ride,
How could they our small planet mark
If 'twere not for its Sunny Side?

It is a long, steady rise from Belgrave to Kallista, and twenty years ago the road was rough and stony. The two city artists who were with me had found the walk rather far. As we rose to the crest, topped now by the Kallista School, the watercolourist sighed, drew his hands from his trouser pockets - he always strolled with his arms buried to the wrists - and looked at me reproachfully. 'Someone has stolen the end of this road,' he remarked with conviction. Five minutes later his back straightened, his eye brightened, he was a different man; we were facing that wonderful view which is framed by the soft green hills of Sassafras and Olinda. 'Why didn't I bring my paints?' he asked. But he, as many another of equal skill, was to 'bring his paints' on plenty of other occasions, for the home we were about to visit was famous for its hospitality. Many of the choicest spirits of Melbourne's world of art and letters made the well-named Sunnyside a meeting place, at week-ends, and, like Toby Belch and his merry company, they frequently 'roused the night-owl in a catch.

The house stands on a hillside which slopes to the creek at Begley's Bridge. The rich soil has a number of granite boulders scattered through it, and from one of these, about three feet high, swelling up near the front verandah, each guest, if he stayed overnight, was expected to deliver an oration. They were memorable evenings. No motor cars in those earlier days flashed along the unevenn roadway far below to remind us of city noise and city cares; our hilltop was a world apart, dedicated to us and to us only. In every pause we would be aware of the solemn night all about us, of the scent of musk and mint-bush and eucalypt, of the never-pausing murmur of the little creek, hurrying, always hurrying. But pauses were few in such company. Here it was that C. J. Dennis wrote much of his Sentimental Bloke and it was to his host and hostess, Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Roberts, that he dedicated that highly successful book. Mr. Roberts had been manager of the cable system of the Melbourne Tramway Company. Several of the ancient 'buses, withdrawn and sold by the company as trams superseded them, stood - they still stand - in favoured spots in the garden. They made capital bedrooms, as we found on occasion. In one of these 'Den' camped, and in it he composed much of his verse of that period.

We made a rally, a sort of house-warming, when he was installed. Each contributed a small picture or a text to hang along the line where, in the 'bus's live days, advertisements used to be placed. The result was a truly remarkable collection of cards, mainly figuring beautiful ladies, and of mottoes containing more advice, direct and oblique, than any man could take in a single lifetime. One of the cryptic utterances which I recall was the warning, worthy of a new Delphic oracle, that a 'motor-car is not fit to be out of!' We sang at nights ancient songs lke 'Samuel Hall' and 'O Landlord, have you any fine wine?' but with verses made on the spot to supplant the extremely frank statements of the original makers of those delectable ballads. Dennis was particularly good at improvization. A lady visitor declared that she had milked the cow that morning. The usual scepticism was expressed. 'Den' at once summed up the matter in a set of neat verses.

That likeable genius, the sculptor Web Gilbert, was a frequent visitor, and so were two of his art associates, John Shirlow, best known then as an etcher, and the late Alick McClintock, the watercolourist. Clad in a white sweater and wrapped closely in a snowy sheet of linen, I was posed one day in the garden as a wood god, alleged to be a creation of Web Gilbert's. The photograph shows him finishing off this marble statue, his implements being a garden hoe as a chisel and a wooden block used in rope quoits, grasped by its pin, as a mallet. It was McClintock who thanked God he had brought his liver with him when, on one occasion, he drove down that stony road in a rattling cart.

Most of the jokes originated in the fertile brain of our host, whose wit never flagged, whose invention was never at a loss. The late George Ellery, town clerk of the City of Melbourne, the editor of a Melbourne daily newspaper, and I were luxuriating in our beds one Sunday morning, having been forbidden to rise early, when Mr. Roberts appeared, attired in an old tail-coat, with towel on arm, as a broken-down waiter. He served me respectfully and passed into the room of the editor. Decorous, murmurings ensued. Then suddenly the pseudo-waiter reappeared in a hurry, accompanied by a burst of threatening language from the newspaper man. With very un-waiter-like joy Mr. Roberts explained that he had offered the editor a sausage wrapped in a sheet of his journal 'Well?' said I. 'Well,' replied our host, 'I told him that I had found something good in his paper at last!' There exists somewhere a remarkable caricature of Mr. Roberts in that waiter costume. It was done by David Low, now one of the foremoost, cartoonists of the English-speaking world. He and Hal Gye, who illustrated The Sentimental Bloke, were often at Sunnyside.

Here, too, M. J. McNally, artist in narrative as in pigment, told some of his finest stories; here, on the friendliest of footings, were men such as the late 'Dave' Wright, known to the frequenters of Fasoli's as 'the man of memory,' and the late Tom Roberts - he did a fine portrait in oils of his namesake. Harold Herbert, who has since recorded so many lovely scenes, has stood on the verandah to admire the Sunnyside view; that great annalist, E. Wilson Dobbs, contributed erudition to the gathering, Hugh Wright, of the Mitchell Library, Sydney, never failed to include Kallista as a place of call when visiting Victoria; but it is not possible to chronicle all. One name, however, must not be omitted. Mrs. Aeneas Gunn, author of those two classics of the inland A Little Black Princess and We of the Never Never, was often an honoured guest, coming up from Monbulk, the village of which, it is hoped, she will write the history some day.

But Sunnyside was centre of a wider circle. Its owner boasted that he was born near Scarsdale, and he was one of the prime movers in that staunch body, the Old Boys of Scarsdale, whose crest is a he-goat and whose motto Non extincti sumus. It was fitting that men born in a goldfield town should so honour their boyhood friend and enemy, the goat. Roberts wrote histories of the early times of his birthplace and its neighbourhood, and conducted a wide correspondence which embraced the late Fred Johns, of Who's Who in Australia, Adelaide, and many a London friend, including Colonel Arthur Lynch, soldier, author and Parliamentarian. Friends, humble or famous, were all welcome to this house in the hills, and when the fame of Mr. Roberts's collections of books on many subjects, notably on the foundation of the Australian Commonwealth, was noised abroad, visitors came even from overseas to Sunnyside to inspect and be charmed.

But to-day Sunnyside is empty. 'Garry' Roberts - to how many was he 'Garry' - is dead, and Mrs. Roberts has left the old place. The shell of the hospitable home stands waiting a new spirit to quicken it to life again. Farewell, Sunnyside!

from I Recall by Robert Henderson Croll,
originally published in "The Argus", 5 August 1933.

For various reasons, I could not come to him, so he came to me. That was the first gracefully characteristic action that helped to reveal the man.

And here, I think, I should hasten to disown any implied analogy with a famous expedient of Moslem's accommodating prophet, which would certainly be ill-fitting, and, perhaps, a little lacking in proper modesty.

He came to us one the one bright day granted this usually well-favored spot in recent weeks, and it would hardly be a sentimental exaggeration to suggest that his coming seemed to have brought the sun.

He has that quality about him, too, and this may be said without indulgence of that sweet sickliness which Americans call "Pollyanna." So that one might reasonably have said, in reply to his conventional greeting: "All the brighter for having seen you, Mr Masefield."

So he impresses a man and a journeyman in the difficult but delightful trade of which he is a master, and so he impresses, I should imagine, every man who has the good fortune to meet him. As for the ladies -- well, some poets have that lucky way with them too.

On the day before he came to us it had been raining heavens hard. We were eager that he and his wife should see this little bit of our forest in its Sunday dress, but the bleak rain continued to fall as it listed, the wind to howl through the trees, for these elements seem no respecters of persons. But all the while the kindly sun was conscious of its duty and its friends. Had we known our visitors earlier we might have guessed that too, and been less apprehensive.

On that rainy day preceding the visit I found myself thinking back to a rather young, and slightly ambitious Australian writer toiling in a tiny bush hut among tall trees, a little lonely and forever dreaming of great things and great men worlds away.

Pinned upon the wall of that hut were various prints and photographs culled from illustrated papers; among them, the portrait of another youngish man with dark hair and a small dark moustache.

Even in that crude print the eyes of this youngish man bore an expression a little wistful, more than a little wise in the knowledge of men and life in rough, unsheltered corners of the earth, and a tolerant kindliness that such a knowledge must bring to one whose capacity for pity is great beyond the average. Yet, behind it all, was a hint of boyishness that had survived many a hard lesson of that hard master, life as the less fortunate majority knows it.

John Masefield had long been the first poet for me among England's living poets; and in that small bush hut I, in turn, learned many a lesson from him in the appreciation of beauty to be found in unsuspected places; so that gradually my own land began to take on for me a beauty revealed by a man who, at that time, had not yet seen it.

The best poets, I like to think, are born with that innate appreciation of beauty everywhere. Ambitious writers of rhyme find it laboriously, after they have first been shown the way.

But, in the days I now write of, not in my vaguest imaginings did I ever dream that it should one day be my good fortune to meet that youngish man of the portrait, grown older now externally and white with years, grown wiser, too, perhaps, but still with that air of kindly wistfulness, and, above all, with that delightful boyishness and rare simplicity that is reflected in most of his writing.

And that is, in my eyes, the revealing quality in John Masefield's personality -- a boyish simplicity, almost an ingenuous capacity for friendship with all men that neither the count of years nor hardest experience can ever kill. And the world and his friends are the happier for it.

Such qualities, I think, are essential in the make-up of every spontaneous singer of real worth. Burns had them, I should imagine, and every natural poet like him.

They are qualities that, for me, anyway, rank highest of all -- far above the acquired wisdom of men of deep erudition who know their fellow men only through biographies and histories, and all the superficial knowledge of mere bookworms.

On the day he came to us, I met John Masefield down in the valley. I stole him from the friends who had brought him from town, and, leaving them to go on ahead, drove him slowly up to the crest of the Great Divide to my home.

We spoke conventionally for the first mile or two - of local topography, of hills and altitudes -- and I wonder if he, too, was trying to gauge the measure of the man he had just met. But I imagine he did not bother about that. It is a curiosity largely indulged by secretive semi-hermits who meet few of the world's eminent men.

But as we began to climb the mountain into the forest, what restraint there was vanished rapidly as the yellow gold and crimson of young gum-leaves, translucent in the sun, began to border the roadside.

He had seen them not long before in the Cumberland, but our roadside is particularly rich in such displays, and he admired, enthusiastically.

We talked then about various moods and phases of the bush, and suddenly he introduced the subject of snakes -- had we many, were they very venomous, how many did we kill in a season? -- his interest was palpably evident and keen, and (assured I was not being politely led to a subject on which I could talk), I told him of a few thrilling encounters. I would like to think that he shivered deliciously.

He was so very keen on those crawling, dangerous things that spelt adventure. What boy would not be?

For once, I found myself wishing that out Australian bush harbored a few fierce carnivorae - lions and tigers, for example, even elephants would have given him a great kick, I imagine.

At lunch, the bush and its fauna were discussed, and the poet told us of the emancipated Turkey, a land he had visited lately, and Mrs Masefield spoke, a little longingly, I imagine of their home in the Cotswolds. Later the poet told us the story of a certain German gentleman and a dish of eggs, and on that managed to turn a real and graceful compliment to his hostess, and I spoke of his cow - which I imagined I had seen him fondling in a photograph. But the cow turned out to be a pony, and I was smothered in ridicule, and we were all boys and girls together.

After lunch we inspected the garden, bathed now in brilliant sunshine; and I came upon the poet round a corner deep in converse with the man whose labors help to make that garden beautiful -- an agricultural laborer not long out from Hampshire. Mrs Masefield asked him how he liked this country.

And then Australia got its genuine advertisement.

"Like it?" said the doughty gardener. "This country will do me, sir. Better off than ever I be."

Asked if he would not like some day to return to England, the man of spades and scythes smiled and shook his head.

"This will do me," he repeated. "I ask none better."

It seemed to me that, remembering that pleasant countryside, whose loveliness he has so well recaptured, the poet was just a little disappointed with this reply. But I, as an insular Australian, was well content, even a little maliciously triumphant.

In the room where I had taken the poet to inspect some curiosity, his eye lit on the various native weapons that hang about the wall -- spears, waddies, boomerangs, woomeras that came from the Arunta community.

Again the boy gleamed delightfully. He hefted the weapons, their use had to be explained, a native duel described -- "all bluggy!" By the more barbaric of those savage instruments he seemed fascinated. Again, what boy would not be?

In the garden again he affected to be unacquainted with individual flowers, even English flowers, and with the dry subject of botany generally.

It is a harmless deceit I have marked in many cultured Englishmen -- more especially artists and writers. Either they know their subject thoroughly or, knowing it indifferently, feign to be completely ignorant. Finally, and a little peevishly perhaps, I asked him if he had ever seen a daffodil. He considered for a moment, then said he thought he had, somewhere, once.

Then we sat together by the pool and yarned of many things and places, and sparingly of books and their making. When carpenters get together -- even a master and an apprentice - they do not harp on floor joints and barge boards.

He asked me of the conditions affecting book production here. I told him of writers here who published in London, of their difficulties, particularly of that iniquitous "Colonial Clause" that robs them of half their earnings. Immediately he volunteered to bring the matter up at the next meeting of the Authors' Club in London. It was altogether spontaneous: I had never remotely hinted that he might do so.

After that we went on to speak of rude, uncultured men in remote places -- he of the sea, I of Australia's hinterland, both of the deeply attractive, always revealing, sometimes heroic qualities to be discovered there. And so, I discovered that his experiences had run strangely parallel with my own.

I, too, had run away from home to engage in many strange and lowly occupations, endured a few hardships, risked a little security and life and limb among rough, tough men. But I said that now I was glad of it -- regretted nothing. It had helped me.

The poet looked at me out of those wisely wistful eyes of his.

"Is there any other way?" he asked quietly.

"Of course not," I agreed; and we went on then to speak of birds. Of his intense interest in these -- especially now, our strange Australian birds -- I have no space to write here. But he misses no chance to learn more of them.

Then, for the fourth or fifth time he got the talk back to that pool from which, in my obtuseness I had often switched the conversation. How did one make a pool? How long did it take? The cost? There was a certain stream running through a field in the Cotswolds; possibly one might -- What did I think?

I explained everything. And, in the not too distant future, I have no doubt a new pool will appear somewhere in the Cotswolds -- a quiet, secluded pool, fringed with tall lupins and buttercups and foxgloves and many flowers of which the white-haired, eager lad who planned it seems unable to quite remember the names.

By now the dipping sun, who had shone so continuously, so mindful of a friend, hinted that, delightful as the talk might be and, for one man, however great the occasion, there was yet none here as great as Joshua -- who was no poet, but a soldier.

So regretful adieus were made, many kindly last words spoken, and I was waving farewell to one I seemed to have known intimately all my life -- yet to no elderly gentleman, but to a white-haired eager lad with that wisely wistful look and, above all, with that rare simplicity and joyous air of indestructible youth and boyish enthusiasm.

And then - whether credited or not, it is the plain truth -- less than an hour after our interesting guests had left us, the sky clouded and the rain was once more with us.

First published in The Herald, 13 November 1934
John Masefield was Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967.

Born into the world six years after the Centaur Laureate's death, I have yet been able to see something of him, tangible and real; a lock of hair forming a ring upon white paper. From my father, this ring passed to Grace Jennings Carmichael; from Grace Jennings to God-knows-whom. I remember a Mrs. Lauder who sent McCrae honey out of the country accompanied by letters (interminably long) all about Gordon; she it was who had cropped the saved the treasurous curl.

Gordon appears a strange creature -- a little touched perhaps; sometimes taciturn, sometimes emotional. He rode both well and badly; he had to be mounted on a good stayer. He took it out of his horses. Trainers and jockeys knew him better than other people; so that, away from the turf, among the churches of Collins-street, he stalked solitarily; his green-lined wide-awake hat and painted Wellington boots making him conspicuous wherever he went.

If the spirit moved him he would join Kendall or Walstab, and, unembarrassed, recite verses in a monotonous voice for hours at a stretch. Kendall, in mouldy black, hugging an umbrella between his knees, constituted an ideal listener -- one who dwelt on every word and criticised justly.

The other aspect of Gordon, the devil-may-care bushman, we know him through Hammersley's anecdote; and it requires little imagination to see him in the yard of the the Hunt Club Hotel, astride a diminutive cob, using his legs like oars to paddle it forward. Quixote on Sancho's ass could not have presented a more ludicrous figure.

Brittle-tempered; once, in a dispute about horses, he pushed George Watson down, and, kneeling on his chest, began to strangle him. Watson worked free, clubbed his riding-crop and, had not partisans of both sides run between, might have killed him. Months afterwards Mrs. Gordon was thrown in the hunting field; she became unconscious. Watson, dismounting, stripped himself of his coat to make a pillow; at the same time he sent a boy with his cap to bring water from a creek. Some of the water he used for washing her face; the rest was given her to drink. Adam, half dazed from a similar fall, staggered towards the couple. Marcus Clarke, who was present, explained what had happened and tried to steady him a bit; but there was no withstanding the ardent husband.

"Maggie! Maggie! Are you hurt?"

"Adam dear, it's scarcely anything."

Gordon lifted his wife's head, and touched the wetted coat. "Whose coat?"

Somebody answered, "Mr. Watson's, sir?"

For a moment the men stood separated; then, suddenly, their hands met, clapping together with a joyful sound.

First published in The Bulletin, 30 January 1929

The erection, at his birthplace in South Australia, of a monument to the memory of C.J. Dennis will awaken a sympathetic vibration in the hearts of that vast multitude of appreciative admirers whose ears are pleasantly haunted by his lilting melodies. Himself a pendulum, swinging incessantly betwixt a smile and a tear, he carries us all with him into whichever realm he plunges.

It is in line with the imposing traditions of the older lands that the literary annals of Australia should be adorned by a magnetic figure whose dazzling brilliance, human tenderness and exuberant humour are thrown into relief frailties that evoke alike our pity and our affection.

A dozen years have now passed since he slipped away from us. How, one wonders, is his unique craftsmanship standing the test of time? His was an extraordinary career: and, as a consequence, he struck a note that was distinctively and exclusively his own. The "Sentimental Bloke" was modelled on nothing, and nothing could possibly be modelled on it.

When the poet died, at the age of 62, Mr. J. A. Lyons, then Prime Minister, referred to him as the Robert Burns of Australia, whilst, long before that time, some of the most eminent critics had saluted him as a master of his craft.

Tributes

The sheets of his masterpiece were scarcely off the press when Mr. H. G. Wells wrote the publishers a letter of enthusiastic congratulation. That most, fastidious judge, Mr. E.V. Lucas confessed that he was a little bewildered at finding Australian slang set to music with such superb skill; but he added that the general effect was so moving as to be positively embarrassing; and, since he hated to seen with moist eyes, he declined to hear the stanzas recited. John Masefield, the King's Laureate, greeted Dennis as a true poet, and, during his vislt to Australia, spent some delightful hours as his guest.

Born at a typical up-country inn at Auburn, in South Australia, and moving, whilst still very young, to another inn at Laura, Dennis early acquired the art of expressing vigorous thought in tuneful verse. Possessing a delicate ear for music and a discrimating eye for beauty, he developed an uncanny appreciation of the value and sweetness of words. Like Robert Service, his Canadian contemporary, with whom he had much in common, he was deeply indebted to the maiden aunts who listened with encouraging pride to his prentice ventures in poetry.

Passing from beneath their doting authority, Dennis spent his mature youth and early manhood in drifting from place to place and from occupation to occupation, groping with blind hands for the glittering but elusive destiny that seemed to lure him on.

Barman, solicitor's clerk, journalist, and what not, he was everything by turns and nothing long. An excellent mixer, singing a good song, enjoying a tempting meal and loving a hearty jest, he never lacked companions.

It was during these years of gipsying that he acquired habits that he afterwards deplored, and that eventually brought him, sad and sorry, to the mountain home of Mr. and Mrs. J.G. Roberts, of Kallista, whose hospitality restored his self-respect, captured his heart and gave to the world a poet of renown. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts did for C.J. Dennis what a generation earlier, Mr. and Mrs. Meynell had done for Francis Thompson.

His work deserves to live. In "dipping his lid" to C.J. Dennis by contributing a foreword to the "Sentimental Bloke," Henry Lawson strikes a note of warning. The book, he says, is very brilliant. Let the reader beware, however, lest its brilliance - brilliance of conception, brilliance of humor and brilliance of pathos - should blind him to something still deeper.

What is that deeper something? At first blush there would seem to be no parallel between Dennis and Dante. The "Sentimental Bloke" does not belong to the same world as the Divine Comedy. Yet Ruskin sums up the Divine Comedy as Dante's love-poem to Beatrice; a song of praise for her watch over his soul. "She saves him from destruction," Ruskin continues. "He is eternally going astray in despair. She comes to his help, and throughout the ascents of Paradise, leads him from star to star." The words exactly describe Dennis's poem. The love of Doreen saved Bill from his baser self, lifted his life to a loftier plane and made a new man of him.

The poems opens dismally. Belonging to the lowest stratum of Melbourne life, Bill has spent most of his time in drinking, gambling and fighting among the purlieus of Little Bourke and Little Streets. He is, however, sick to death of the whole thing.

But why has he so suddenly come to loathe the life that he had so recently loved? Obviously, something must have caused this recoil. It has. On a perfect spring morning he has seen Doreen. At first she will have nothing to do with him. He speaks; but, with a toss of her pretty head and a swish of her skirt, she passes on her queenly way, leaving Bill writhing in the very dust. Yet he loves her all the more for her refusal to make herself cheap.

On this slender but exquisitely human foundation, Dennis rears his philosophy of life. Bill has to choose between his old ways and Doreen.

Fer 'er sweet sake I've gone and chucked it all clean;
   The pubs and schools, an' all that leery game
Fer when a bloke 'as come to know Doreen,
   It ain't the same.
There's 'igher things, she sez, for blokes to do;
An' I am 'arf believin' that it's true.

Just once, two months after their wedding, Bill meets some of his old cronies, slips back into his former courses and turns his steps homeward in the early morning in a condition in which he is ashamed to present himself to Doreen. She puts him to bed, and, a few hours later, tiptoes into the room with tears in her eyes and, in her hands, a basin of beef-tea -

Beef tea! She treats me like a hinvaleed!
Me! that 'as caused 'er lovin' 'eart to bleed.
   It 'urts me worse than maggin' fer a week!
'Er! 'oo 'ad right to turn dead sour on me,
Fergives like that, an' feeds me wiv beef tea . . .
      I tries to speak;
An' then -- I ain't ashamed o' wot I did --
I 'ides me face . . . an' blubbers like a kid.

An' I am rich, becos me eyes 'ave seen
The lovelight in the eyes of my Doreen;
   An' I am blest, becos me feet 'ave trod
   A land 'oo's fields reflect the smile o' God.
Sittin' at ev'nin' in this sunset-land,
Wiv 'Er in all the World to 'old me 'and,
   A son, to bear me name when I am gone....
   Livin' an' lovin'--so life mooches on.

First published in The Age, 9 December 1950

There has never been a complete collection of Marcus Clarke's work published -- and there never will be. Hidden away in old periodicals and newspapers are scores of his unsigned items, some of which can been identified by peculiarities of the author's style; for, like George Augustus Sala, the greatest journalist of all time, Clarke could invest a seemingly unimportant par. with a literary flourish. However, the purpose of this article is not to discuss the merits of Marcus as an all-round journalist, but to consider him from an entirely new angle -- that of "terrorist".

Perhaps you will say there are horrors enough in "His Natural Life" to glut the most epicurean. Admittedly so; but it is to his smaller pieces, such as, for instance, that brightly written little story "The Mind-Reader's Curse," we must turn to appreciate him as a shocker.

One of his earliest efforts, "The Mantuan Apothecary," which appeared in the "Australian Monthly" (later transformed under Clarke's supervision into the "Colonial Monthly"), has a tastefully worded conclusion. There is to me something particularly pleasing in the last paragraph where the Mantuan Apothecary meditates on "The chains, the crowd, the hangman and the gallows!"

Two Christmas stories of his were masterpieces of suggested horror. "The Man with the Oblong Box" (which contained a corpse that the man was evidently keeping as a souvenir) is a narrative tale with an artistic touch; the author, while cleverly avoiding the least suspicion of actual gruesomeness, gives the reader eloquent proof of the box's shocking contents.

"Treasure Trove" in "The Australian Annual 1858," was the other Christmas thriller. The late Thomas Carrington executed a very realistic plate for this tale, depicting two unkempt and ferocious desperadoes clawing golden ingots from each other. One gentleman is slightly inconvenienced through having to hold his dagger in his right hand, but his opponent is more practical-minded, with his weapon between his clenched teeth, he is able to use both hands in the scramble. Unfortunately, nobody gets the gold. Both perish in the frozen ocean and the story is read from an MS. found in a bottle.

There is a distinctly Biercian flavor in some of Clarke's minor sketches. The poem of "How Bill Jinks Died," written as a burlesque of Jim Bludso, is worthy of the Great Ambrose himself.

A fire takes place, Bill seats himself on the muzzle of the hose, is propelled to the window-ledge, and rescues Maggie, the eighty-year-old virgin just as she is "frizzling brown." They descend on the sinking stream, but something goes wrong, and the poet then tells us:

"Twas Meg survived -- this smoke I guess
   Just makes my eyelids smart;
But Bill was just an unpleasant mess,
   Like a trod-upon raspberry tart!"

These miscreants were all of unblemished turpitude, closely resembling the sublimely immoral schoolmaster in Miss Braddon's "Three Times Dead, Or the Trail of the Serpent," who, after disposing of sundry victims, destroys all trace of his crime by quaffing the water in which he had washed his gory hands! Those "London Journal" profligates were all ruthless disrupters of home life, and Marcus got a lot of amusement out of ridiculing them.

Nevertheless, when he assumed the proprietorship of the "Colonial Monthly" in 1868, he ran as a serial his tale, "Long Odds," which was worthy of the "London Journal" in its palmiest days! It was a cross between Dickens's "Our Mutual Friend" and Shirley Brooke's "Gordian Knot," only its moral was slightly better than the first mentioned.

This may seem rank heresy to Dickensians, but may I mention, in parenthesis, that I have often marvelled how Dickens, with his preference for the fustian-clad hero, could turn poor Bradley Headstone, the protector of the innocent, into the villian of the piece!

However, there wasn't a hero of any sort in "Long Odds," unless it was Binns, the neglected suitor, protector and avenger of the simple-souled, blighted damsel who served as heroine. Incidentally, she was a devotee of the detested "London Journal," and, I daresay, it was to this we were meant to trace her downfall.

The villian gets his desserts from the equally guilty husband thus: Rupert Dacie enters his room and strikes a match, there being, of course, in those days no switch to turn over. Then "with hoarse cry and knife upraised, the waiting assassin leapt upon him, and as the expiring match dropped from his hand, its blue flickering flame showed him for one single second the white face and bloodshot eyes of Cyril Chatteris."

After having written the early instalments to this tale, Clarke fell from his horse and fractured his skull, recovering in time to add the climax and revise the work for publication in book form. His style showed a marked improvement after this accident (just as a similar mishap turned Ambrose Bierce into the strange, wild genius we know him to be), and I am sure we owe the advent of "His Natural life" to this simple casualty.

Clarke has been criticised for the part he made John Rex play as impersonator of the "rightful heir" in "His Natural Life" and the probability of such an occurrence has been doubted. Judging from the old-time literature I have seen carrying Marcus Clarke's autograph, I fancy he found the basis for this story of deception in the narrative of Martin Guerre, the ex-Algerian slave. Martin escaped and returned to France, only to find that a former fellow convict, in whom he had confided, and to whom he bore a striking resemblance, had usurped his wife and other possessions! Besides, just about the time Marcus was writing his magnum opus, the Tichborne imposture was attracting public attention.

Clarke, the story writer, poet, novelist and dramatist -- the transplanted Englishman so typically Australian -- will surely not be forgotten, during the coming Centenary celeberations. What about a statue to him!

First published in The Herald, 13 January 1934

Notes:

"Jim Bludso" was a 1917 silent film directed by Todd Browning, about a riverboat captain who sacrifices himself to save his passengers from a fire.
Wikipeda has pages detailing the Martin Guerre affair, and the Tichborne Case.
The Centenary mentioned in the last paragraph refers to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the colony (in 1835) that later became the State of Victoria in Australia.

In the year of its publication in book form - after it had appeared in THE BULLETIN - The Sentimental Bloke sold 67,000 copies. In 1925 the total was 113,000. It is still selling.

While C.J. Dennis was piling up sales as Bradman piles up runs, the work of an English poet was cutting similarly astronomical capers. Englishmen at home or in the trenches were read:-

If I should die think only this of me,
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.

There's a good green land awaitin' you when you come 'ome again
To swing a pick at Ballarat or ride Yarrowie Plain.
The streets is gay wiv dafferdils - but, haggard in the sun,
A wounded soljer passes; an' we know ole days is done.
Fer somew'ere down inside us, lad, is somethin' you put there
The day yeh swung a dirty left, fer us, at Sari Bair.

Brooke's poetry, as all true poetry does, offers the core of thought with the decoration intrinsic and incidental; Dennis - and this is where they part company - is mainly decoration. The slang, the humor were a smoke-screen covering a limited range of thought. But he goes into the richest, if not the "grandest" company - that of Chaucer, Burns and the Masefield of "The Widow in the Bye Street." Through THE BULLETIN rhymes that were afterwards published as Backblock Ballads, Dennis first became known as a balladist, but in spite of this, and although he had learned his trade from Dyson and Goodge and the rest, he is not of that company. As Burns did with the Scots ballads, he read them, absorbed them, and then transmuted them. It seems to be true that Australian poetry has had to evolve of itself without direct assistance from the English tradition, and if this is so then Dennis is a link between the balladists and the sophisticated poets of to-day. He is probably "important" in that sense; but he is certainly important as the man who expressed the emotions of thousands of Australians.

When Burns tried to break away from his métier and write more sophisticated verse, he was a failure. The jargon of Gray flowed falsely from his pen. Dennis, not as rich as Burns in his popular verse, was very much more successful than Burns when he broke from the territory of the vernacular. The Glugs of Gosh, though never popular, was excellent satire. With all its wit, satire and fantasy it is as fresh to-day as when he wrote it. Sym in his condemnation of hate, fear, swank, hypocrisy and wowserism, lacks the immediate appeal of The Bloke, but is every bit as much an Australian.

Dennis borrowed unmistakably from Lewis Carroll here: -

Step not jauntily, not too grave
Till the lip of the languorous sea you greet;
Wait till the wash of the thirteenth wave
Tumbles a jellyfish at your feet.
Not too hopefully, not forlorn,
Whisper a word of your earnest quest;
Shed not a tear if he turns in scorn
And sneers in your face like a fish possessed.

And his parents' claims were a deal denied
By a maiden aunt on his mother's side,
A tall Glug lady of fifty-two,
With a slight moustache of an auburn hue.

In Gosh, sad Gosh, where the Lord Swank lives,
He holds high rank and be has much pelf;
And all the well-paid posts he gives
Unto his fawning relatives
As foolish as himself.

I'll make of you a Glug of rank
With something handy in the bank,
And fixed opinions, which, you know,
With fixed deposits always go.

The Glugs followed fashion and Sym was a craze,
They sued him for words, which they greeted with tears,
For the way with a Glug is to tickle his ears.

We strive together in life's crowded mart,
Keen-eyed, with clutching hands to overreach.
We scheme, we lie, we play the selfish part,
Masking our lust for gain with gentle speech;
And masking, too - O pity ignorance! -
Our very selves behind a careless glance.

Said he: "Whenever the fields are green,
Lie still, where the wild rose fashions a screen,
While the brown thrush calls to his love-wise mate.
And know what they profit who trade with Hate."
Said he: "Whenever the great skies spread
In the beckoning vastness overhead,
A tent for the blue wren building a nest,
Then down in the heart of you learn what's best."

It starts this mornin'. I wake up with a tooth
That's squirmin' like a basketful uv snakes.
Per'aps I groan a bit, to tell the truth;
An' then she wakes,
An' arsts me wot I'm makin' faces for.
I glare at 'er, an' nurse me achin' jor.

Go as he guides you over the marsh,
Treading with care on the slithery stones,
Heedless of night winds moaning and harsh
That sieze you and freeze you and search for your bones.

First published in the Bulletin, 6 July 1938
Note: C.J. Dennis died on 22 June, 1938.

(Some Memories of "DEN")

I was very far away, in the heart of Central Australia in fact, when word reached me of the death of my old cobber C. J. Dennis - "effusively yours, Clarence James Michael Stanislaus, Dennis," as he once signed a note to ine. We were closely in touch for years, batching together whenever I could snatch a spell at his early Toolangi home (how different from to-day's fine structure!), swapping writings and hitting one another up with criticism, and sharing lively days and nights when the Sentimental Bloke made him prosperous and he came to live near me in Camberwell. I was even "best man" when he had to go to hospital for an operation.

With a stout friend, Garry Roberts (then manager of the Cable Tramways), we had had many conferences before the "Bloke" was offered to Angus & Robertson. A Melbourne publisher refused it and we debated whether it would not be better to get it out as a subscription volume at 5/- or perhaps in a popular form at one shilling. George Robertson's acceptance settled all that.

I met Den first at "Toolangi on the rise" in a hut used occasionally by a group of us as a camp. It filled a corner of the allotment in which stood the sawmiller's house which was then his home. To-day that corner is part of the garden. The hour was midnight. We had walked from Healesville. Comfortably tired, we had snuggled into our swags and were deep down in the well of sleep when Den came knocking at the door and demanding to know who we were. He had arrived home late and had seen the glimmer of our fire through the chinks.

We let him in, politely stirred the dying fire, and we "hung round" and said the conventional things. The night was bitterly cold, none of us had enough clothes on, the breeze chilled our bare legs . . . and Den settled himself for a long yarn! Had I known him as well then as I did later I should have promptly returned to bed and talked from there: as it was we stood about and waited for him to go. But he was enjoying himself too much; that humorous perception of his had promptly sized up the position, and he waited to see how long we would keep it going. It ended by our retirement (with apologies) and Den's going off with a hearty laugh.

The "Arden" (as he was finally to name his home) of these days with its spreading lawns, its colourful flower beds, its tennis court, its clear pool reflecting banks of bloom, its garage, its double windows opening out into the very heart of great wattles - this "Arden" holds no suggestion at all, save position, of that original house which Den, in puckish mood, had christened "Sea View" - the point being that to view the ocean one would have to look through several hills and an untold amount of tall forest.

There it was that I spent week-ends and holidays with him, and there I learnt the origin of his famous "Sentimental Bloke," and watched the story grow. The original of the Bloke was a city lad, a typical product of the Melbourne lanes, who boasted that, as a plumber, he was always called in by the Chinamen when any repairs were needed in their opium dens or gambling shops. Every year he broke away and spent a few months on general jobs in the country. Den had passed many an improving hour with this tough when he came to Toolangi. A rumour went round one year that he was after a settler's daughter. Public opinion was stirred to its depths; the very worst was expected. Then came the shock. He dropped in on Dennis, who had heard the rumours and expected smug complacency or vulgar triumph from the hardened culprit. To Den's surprise the youth betrayed real concern: "Gor blime, Mr. Dennis," he said, almost weeping, "Gor blime, I've got sisters of me own!"

So was born the Sentimental Bloke - a larrikin in whom rough manners and crude language were found to be compatible with a soft heart.

Den could play most musical instruments. He made his own banjo - a hoop, a cat skin, a piece of blackwood turned in his lathe - the only things he bought were strings. With that on his knee and leading the singing, we would sit on the verandah and "rouse the night owl" (and often the morning thrush) "in a catch." To Den's strumming we improvised verses to well-known tunes or adapted, shamelessly, classical poems to nigger minstrel airs. In retrospect we seem a pretty pair of vandals to sing Oscar Wilde's heart-breaking "Ballad of Reading Gaol" to the tune of "Playing on the Old Banjo." But that was only one of our sins.

Den's first dog, a fox terrier named Bloke, was then alive. He was really a word-hound, or so Den said, his speciality being the running down of synonyms for his master. Bloke had a passion; he would rise suddenly from his mat, generally when we were at meals, and step, ever so quietly, stiff-legged and watchful, to a corner, of the room where we had reason to believe a snake lived under the flooring. Bloke wanted that snake. He would stand like a statue, waiting and hoping while the rustlings, inaudible to us, proceeded; but the serpent was too wise to come forth, and the dog would sigh and return to his slumbers.

That amazingly successful work, "The Songs of the Sentimental Bloke," was completed at "Sunnyside," the Sassafras home of his good friends Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Roberts, to whom he dedicated the volume. There he had for a bedroom a retired 'bus, and there we spent many happy hours, for "Sunnyside" became a rendezvous for the literary and artistic world. We decorated the inside of the bus with pictures and mottoes. I had walked up on one occasion and been badly dusted by motors. My contribution was the slogan: "A motor car is not fit to be out of."

Dave Low, now probably the best known and most highly paid cartoonist, in the British Empire, and Hal Gye, whose Cupids adorn the "Sentimental Bloke," were frequent visitors. Den improvised some verses describing these cobbers and himself in which their characters were rhythmically outlined.

Each was depicted as a bird living in the forest of Ingavar (the name of a bush homestead near by). The Davlo Bird called constantly "Ink, ink, ink!" and it mourned because

"Late or soon the swift Cartoon
Must soar to the Utmost Star,"

Gye, being short of stature, was naturally a tomtit - the Halgi Tit

"Which loves to sit,
On the frond of a swaying fern
And croon and croon to a low loose tune
A nervous nude Nocturne."

Den himself became the Denawk seeking "rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, all fat and prime" for his meat. He proclaimed himself as filled "with a purpose grim for the synonym" and as "foraging near and far, rending his prey in a rhythmic way on the gums of Ingavar."

By the way, a dinner we gave in Melbourne to Den, Gye and Low will long be remembered, if only for Hal's speech. It was a quaint effort. He claimed one merit, and one only, for his drawings of the naked Cupids which personate Bill and Doreen in Den's book. "I know Doreen's navel is correct," he asserted, "for I drew it from my own in front of the mirror."

When we were all met it was Den's baritone which led in those ribald and tuneful old songs "Landlord, Have You Any Fine Wine?" and "My Name is Samuel Hall," and it was he who taught us the Dago Rag, which begins: "I've got a brother Carus', he singa da note." In a period prone to the pornographic in literature it is notable that C. J. Dennis, handling a subject which dealt with low life, and using slang as his medium of expression, was nowhere guilty of impropriety of language or indecency of thought. The Sentimental Bloke is a larrikin classic, and a clean one.

It has been said that Dennis was not a poet of high rank but he had true poetic feeling, and as a dexterous rhymster and begetter of quaint ideas he has had no equal in Australia. His work is richly charged with humour and a fine feeling for his fellow man. Australian letters gained greatly by his pen.

I am grateful, looking back, for his companionship. If I were asked to write his epitaph I should put this on the stone:

Den.
Delicious laughter haunts the place,
Though here Doreen weeps with the Kid.
Our Yorick sleeps within this space -
The Bloke has passed: oh, dip the lid!

First published in Australian National Review May 1939

Note:
You can read the text of Ingavar.

Marcus Clarke, the Australian novelist, died in a house in Inkerman Road, St. Kilda, on August 2, 1881, leaving a young family. Marian, the second daughter, was in her third year. They left the house. Marian had just been telling me that after all these years she has seen the house again. The Australian Literature Society had lately asked her about it, and she went out to Inkerman Road a few days ago to see if the old house still stood. She was just in time. A sale notice was on the fence, and she was told that the house is doomed to demolition, to make way for modern flats. Marcus Clarke called it Sunnyside. Perhaps the owner of the new flats will retain that name or perhaps apply the novelist's own name to th ebuilding. Miss Marian Marcus Clarke found the surroundings of the house much changed. An orchard had been built over, and Sunnyside is now at the corner of a new street, Orange Grove.

First published in The Herald, 28 July 1934

LONDON, May 17

The words of the old Jacobite toast haunted me, for they seemed, on that morning in May, to echo from the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie -- the lad they dared not name -- the faith of a great Clan that all its bards and fighting-men would at last come home.

Here, in this "acre sown indeed with the richest, royalest seed," the prayer had been answered; for the occasion was the unveilng, by the Duke of York, of the Memorial to Adam Lindsay Gordon in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. Not only had the clansmen gathered; men of letters, statesmen, and ambassadors had assembled to pay homage to one who, having with his own hand freed the soul from its cage of clay, was found dead with a revolver in his hand and his last shilling in his hat beside him -- the first suicide to gain the immortal memorial of entertainment in the greatest temple of our race.

Among those present were the Marquess of Huntly, accepted by the Scots Peerage as chiefs of all the Gordons in Scotland, notwithstanding that their ancestor was a Seton who married the hieress of Gordon; the Marchioness of Huntly; the Marquess and Machioness of Aberdeen, whose families are the Gordons; the Duchess of Hamilton and others of the Gordon kin; Lord Dunsany, the Scottish peer and poet; and Miss Rosemary Haslam, great-niece of Adam Lindsay Gordon and daughter of Colonel Lovell Haslam. Memories which stretched far into the past were those of Mr. J.J. Virgo, the noted Y.M.C.A. organiser, who, before he made his nine tours of the world, was a little boy at Glenelg, South Australia, and often sat on the knee of the poet, a frequent visitor at his parents' house.

Beside Tennyson

From the north-west tower of the Abbey flew the Australian flag, and it draped also the bust of the poet, from which is was removed for the unveiling by the Duke of York, who was accompanied by the Duchess. The Duke later, on behalf of the people of Australia, presented the memorial to the safe keeping of the Dean and the Chapter. It bears the inscription:

It is beside the memorial of Alfred Tennyson, and close to those of Coleridge, Wordsworth and Campbell. It is fitting that Gordon, Englishman first and Australian afterwards, should be commemorated in the Abbey. But we keep Henry Lawson's memorial in Australia and in the hearts of every Australian for his is our very own.

After the unveiling, a short voluntary, specially composed for the occasion, was played. It was based on that lovely lament, "The Flowers o' the Forest are a' wede awa'," which no Scot may hear unmoved.

Archbishop's Address

In his address, the Archbishop of Canterbury said:-

"One hundred years ago Adam Lindsay Gordon was born, and now his restless spirit finds a home in the peace of the Abbey. How little could he have dreamed that such a destiny awaited him! What would Tennyson, Coleridge and Wordsworth have thought of this young Australian horsebreaker and steeplechaser thus brought by his memorial into their company? Surely they would generously welcome him as a brother poet. "He would think that it was even stranger that it should be an Archbishop who ventures today to vindicate his place among the poets of the English tongue; yet amid the cares and burdens of that office I have found refreshment and exhilaration in his songs of swift and eager action in the open air."

"Though outwardly true to the title of his clan, 'The Gay Gordons,' he was ever haunted by a wistful melancholy. Finally, after only 37 years of life, broken in body and clouded in mind by a racing accident, his own hand set free his soul. But already he had published his poems, and almost at once Australia took them to her heart, where ever since they have remained ... Sometimes his verse seems to recall that first rapture when the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy. It seems fitting, therefore, that he should have a place in this shrine of British poetry.

"Whatever a stern criticism may say as to the abiding merit of his work, at least there can be no doubt as to the value which the heart of Australia sets upon it. He is the voice of the national life of one of the young nations of the British race. The memorial of him will be an enduring link between Australia and the Motherland."

"There is nothing good for me under the sun
But to perish as these things perished."

Not the least gratifying feature of the occasion was the manner in which the English and Scottish newspapers recorded it. Numerous biographies of Gordon were published, which for the most part afforded sound estimates of the merit of his work, though few of them traced its affinity with that of Swinburne, and none its kinship with the hunting verses of G.J. Whyte-Melville.

First published in The Herald, 21 June 1934

Those who are still able to read and appreciate poetry and verse are meeting to celebrate the placing of a tablet in Westminster Abbey to the memory of Adam Lindsay Gordon. An Australian poet has yet to win a place there. Gordon was an English poet who gained the inspiration for his best work in his homeland, and who wrote as if his life in Australia were that of an exile. His popularity is probably due to his chivalrous sportsmanship, his galloping verses, his somewhat gloomy sentimentalism and the "froth and bubble" type of wisdom that gets applause almost anywhere. Australia's own poets are comparatively neglected. Henry Lawson -- who touched poetic heights above Gordon and occasionally descended to deeper depths of doggerel -- is honored by a few loyal societies, and his best lines and thoughts gradually enter into common expression. He was the poet of the bush humanity rather than of nature. His rebellious heart was moved by a great human sympathy. Another and greater Australian poet -- Kendall, whose lyrics of nature flow with a Tennysonian facility and felicity and compare occasionally with those of Shelley -- is relatively neglected.

The anniversary of Kendall's birthday April 18, 1841 -- was not observed. For every portrait of him in our little private libraries there are fifty of Gordon, the English singer, and twenty of Lawson. He was Australian first and last, although influenced by the culture of the older lands. Thomas Kendall, a Lincolnshire schoolmaster, came to Sydney in 1809. His adventurous son, Basil, the poet's father, was probably born there or in New Zealand, where Thomas spent a few years. The poet himself was born in a primitive cottage near the agricultural village of Milton, on the New South Wales south coast. The Kendalls were men of education and wide reading. On the south coast, and on the north also, amongst the hill forests and the deep, cool glens, the music of nature haunted Henry Kendall "as the wind a tree." In the lonely, beautiful places he drew syllables from "unfooted dells and secret hollows dear to noontide dew" -- "words and music caught from glen and height and lucid colors born of woodland light."

The discussion of Centenary odes and lyrics, yet to be, gives additional interest to Kendall's work when he, too, attempted the terrible task of writing to order. His first essay in this kind of versification was on the occasion of the Sydney Exhibition of the early eighties, when he was the author of the prize ode. The poem is an enraptured survey of Australian exploration and colonisation from the earliest days up to the occasion by which it was suggested. The stilted heroics and the free citation of mythological characters and analogies suggest Kendall wrote with a grim unflinching purpose. There are many fine lines; Kendall never entirely failed. Before a concluding metrical invocation, resonant and sincere, he glorifies his native land.

"Her crown will shine beside the crown of kings
Who shape the seasons, rule the course of things;
The fame of her across the years to be
Will spread like light on a surpassing sea;
And graced with glory, girt with power august,
Her life will last till all things turn to dust."

"Dressed is the beautiful city -- the spires of it
Burn in the firmament stately and still;
Forest has vanished -- the wood and lyres of it,
Lute sof the sea-wind and harps of the hill.
This is the region and here is the bay by it,
Collins, the deathless, beheld in a dream;
Flinders and Fawkner, our forefathers grey, by it
Paused in the hush of a season supreme."

"To Thee be the glory, All-Bountiful Giver!
The song that we sing is an anthem of Thee,
Whose blessing is shed on thy people for ever,
Whose love is like beautiful light on the sea.
Behold, with high sense of Thy mercy unsleeping,
We come to Thee, kneel to Thee, praise Thee and pray,
O Lord, in whose hand is the strength that is keeping
The storm from the wave and the night from the day!"

Our first lyrical poet was not entirely engrossed with the beauty and song of his native woodland. Although his description of the Melbourne Cup does not suggest that the race was run at a thrilling speed, few verses travel faster or with a more energetic lilt than the description of the thirst-maddened beasts "On a Cattle Track." The poet's gentle soul was once moved to write an Australian war-song. It calls upon Australians to "whet the swords you have in keeping; Forward, stand to do or die," but it is not poetry, and as for the swords we have in keeping, it is hardly accurate.

As the literary sense of Australia becomes more discriminating Kendall will rise to a place still higher in the minds of students and readers. If there be a place for another club, it might be formed to discuss the great New South Welshman and other Australian poets of nature who have felt the Kendall influence.

First published as an editorial in The Herald, 5 May 1934

Died. Henrietta Richardson Robertson (pen name: Henry Handel Richardson), seventyish, Australian novelist (Ultima Thule) who lived in England but turned for subject matter to her native country; in Hastings, Sussex. A striver for Flaubertian impersonality, she achieved it so well that few readers guessed the author's sex.

From Time, 1 April 1946