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Reprint: Our Own Writers: Poets Alive by Nettie Palmer

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Anxiously watching the course of poetry as it comes into existence among us, I feel that its chief writers have been endangered by two precipices -- on the one hand that of wishing to display a little learning and to write as a gentleman instead of as a human being; on the other hand, that of saying, "I'm just writing about the bush so the more slapdash the better; there's nothing literary or intense about the bush!" These twin heresies have persisted in surprising places but our genuine writers falling into neither of them, have pressed straight on in the belief that they are free to write about "the whole of life" to the best of their power.

Poetry at its rarest remains "the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge." It is true that the adequate presentation in prose of our experiences has required an adult type of organisation in publishing and reviewing-an organisation beginning to appear. It is true that it has required also an adult, unhesitating stance on the part of the prose writer, usually a novelist. But we can hardly suggest that poetry, because of its more primitive form of publication to-day is more childish than prose. It was childish in olden times to write histories and prescriptions in verse; and many bad kinds of verse writing to-day are childish in the worst sense.  It was childish to do what the late Ella Wheeler Wilcox did, for of her it was written, "She says in verse what most of those who think with her have already said in prose." It has been childish here, too, when one good bush yarn after another, deserving to be told and retold round the camp fires until it became a brief prose masterpiece, was drearily flattened into a yard or two of jog-trot verse instead. We can contrast the limping, padded fourteener lines characterising most of these episodes in verse with the crisp prose of Lance Skuthorpe's tiny fantasy, "The Champion Bullock-driver." A prose theme dragged needlessly into verse is certainly childish, but it is not poetry.

The Poetic Idea

How does a poet decide what is fit for poetry? Onlookers may use someone's serviceable dogma: "An idea fit for poetry is on idea which, if turned into prose, still craves to be expressed in verse." Our popular balladists of the past only in the rarest instances have expressed genuinely poetic ideas; usually we must turn to those less known poets that have arisen since. Certain of these have indeed attempted to capture that finer spirit of knowledge. O'Dowd has been a significant growing-point of our literature and he has his successes. I think it is interesting and not accidental that when four of our poets published books last year each had published poems quite 30 years ago. Perhaps the spectacle of Hardy, Bridges, and now, Yeats, able to "burn brighter toward the setting sun," has begun to destroy the wicked old doctrine that no man can write poetry after 40. If Yeats had supposed that when the first flush of romantic youthful lyricism had left him his poetic expression was over, we should never have had those later miracles in which a mature man thinks aloud with his whole being.

Of William Baylebridge's recent book of sonnets, "Love Redeemed," I have written already a little. There came also Furnley Maurice's "Melbourne Odes," perhaps the eighth book by this poet. A new departure in their freedom and diversity, these odes were definitely "signed" by the poet, who published an unsigned collection, "Unconditioned Songs," in 1913.  Furnley Maurice in other volumes, such as "The Gully," approached themes diffcult in themselves. If English "rural" poets are in danger of falling upon commonplaces when they now write of nightingale or daisy, these subjects each having had epithets limpetted to them for centuries, our poets have so far on opposite difficulty. They have yet to find even the barest words for the prolonged yodel of the magpie, or for the whipbird's note like a single plash into a pool. See how Furnley Maurice balances a famous refrain on the paradoxical word "soft":-
 
   The softness of a Kookaburra's crown,  
      The wind puts softly up and solely down
   His eyes of love that almost humanly speak        
      Peering in softness o'er that murderous beak!    

In "Melbourne Odes," using the same freshness of attack he has set himself to suggest a modern city, its literal rectangles of street and building, its noise and glare, then the contradiction of its soaring towers and over those towers the more incredible sky.

Macartney and Shaw Neilson  

Frederick Macartney's "Hard Light" was written in a serviceable anger, his Dr. Fell being a place, Darwin. Using many lyrical forms and varieties of mood he finally tears himself away. Under his scornful touch the region with its subtle tortures and oddly beautiful mitigations is made alive, as it could hardly have been by songs of direct praise. There is a clearcut intensity in this hard light, making the reader glad to look up the poet's earlier books. The fourth of last year's books was Shaw Neilson's "Collected Poems" -- all the poet is willing to acknowledge -- and we can only guess at a postscript. It is curious to remember that Shaw Neilson began as one of the balladists in the 'nineties though not at ease in that galley. Then came some of his velvet-smooth lyrics with their suggestion of escape from a Mallee township into a world of conservatories, but soon he found his own poise, and it came from the very "poor country" he had best known.

   The blue cranes fed their young all day-how far in a tall tree!
   And the poor, poor country made no pauper of me.

His runaway rhythms are delicately his own:-
 
   When thou art gone a little way
      I am in a cold fear:
   The day like a long sickness is,
      And I count the moon a year.

   I fool it on the mist, - the heart
      Renounces liberty.

These four poets, working apart, would probably agree in their literary outlook. Probably, too, if Robert Fitzgerald were to publish a new collection. It would have some harmony with them. Fitzgerald has a robustness, while at the same time being the chief Australian to adapt the rhythms of the later Yeats.

There are movements in another direction. For instance, Bertram Higgins's most significant poem, "Mordecaius Overture," has gradually penetrated the inquiring literary consciousness. While disagreeing with some of his dogmas as a guide to writers less creative than himself -- for he has taught them to reject images from the life around them, as if what had never yet found expression were already outworn -- I cannot "disagree with" his work itself, which is difficult, original, and profound. (A little foreigner once gave me, as his reason for going to Sydney by train, "I do not agree with the sea.") Higgins's explicit influence has been in the direction of a rather sterile intellectualism, producing sharpshooters and not singers, but his example has been salutary where it has not been overwhelming. His associates, who in most instances would choose to be called his followers, include two who have published in book form -- Edgar Holt and Clive Turnbull, each with passages of individual brilliance interrupted by pieces so frankly in the manner of T. S. Eliot, as to be intended surely as studies.  The course of this movement is impossible to foresee, and a guess is made no easier by the presence, on the circumference, or another poet of great skill, D. P. McGuire. One thing is clear, it wears no kind of moleskins; as for the alternative the belltenner, what form would it take in 1935?

First published in The Argus, 16 March 1935

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

Reprint: Roderic Quinn's Poems

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Roderic Quinn many years ago forsook the study of law and the practice of school teaching for the flowery paths of literature, and since then has poured forth a stream of verse, much of which contains the pure gold of poetry.  He is now near his grand climacteric, and as is fitting has issued a volume, of his collected poetry. All his best-known and most appreciated efforts are included. 

Here in this book are to be found A Grey Day and The Camp Within the West, which date back to the last century, but have retained, their interest for all amateurs of Australian verse. The Lotus Flower and The Seeker also have long been widely known. They have a quality that seems likely to ensure their permanence. But, for many, Quinn's poems of the free life of the West will have the stronger appeal. The toast of the men in the Out-east camps - 
 
   Last with this-may their hearts discover,       
      On every track that the outcast tramps,   
   A friend in need and at need a lover,
   Green grass round them and kind stars over           
      And dreams of peace in their western camps.  
 
A virile roughness in the verse that would have been condemned by the Victorians is counted a virtue now, and grandsires and grandsons, will have to settle the question on the heights of Olympus. A fine volume closes with a noble poem, The Soul of the Anzac.  Our copies of both publications come to us from Mr, W. H. Hurd, bookseller and news agent, Wilson street, Burnie. 

First published in The Advocate, 24 December 1920

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

Reprint: Our Own Writers: Novels From Nowhere by Nettie Palmer

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Significant prose appeared in Australia later than poetry. If in the last decade the novel has arrived with a strange rush, it had been preceded by 50 years in which the joke about our huge crop of spring poets was as monotonous as the mother-in-law joke in America. Furphy, Lawson, Barbara Baynton -- a few names of story writers stood out like islands in an ocean of balladry. This lag in prose was caused, I would cautiously suggest, largely by external conditions. For the novelist there existed no vehicle at all, but it was possible for almost any competent verse-writer to be published in some journal, the awful truth being that he has consistently been paid by the line, by quantity, instead of quality, with every incentive to pad; and all honour to those who have kept sound and terse! After appearing in a journal, a poet could fairly easily publish his work in book form -- at his own expense, of course, for that is expected of a poet. It costs less to produce, in the usual small edition, the comparatively few words of a poet, stringing down the page like a small mob of cattle, than to publish the sixty, eighty, or a hundred thousand words of a novel and to put that novel into effective circulation. The publishing of poetry can be an amateur matter: to publish novels steadily, a country needs to be more professional in its publishing habits, a little more grown up. Even when our novels of the past decade were actually published abroad, they were more or less well circulated here and helped to change the whole literary outlook.

No Audience in Advance

What novels were these? One after another, they were so unexpected, and their writers' names usually so little known, that it was natural to call them novels from nowhere. Not that they lacked marks of their origin: from Katharine Prichard's "Working Bullocks" in 1925, to F. D. Davison's "Man Shy" three years ago or Brian Penton's "Landtaker's" last year, each one belonged to some part of this huge and varied country. If they came from nowhere, it was that they came like rain from a blue sky. As Joseph Furphy said roundly about his "Such Is Life," they were definitely not written in answer to numerous requests. Our novelists had no eager audience in advance. Perhaps the same blank was felt by a novelist in Russia before Gogol and Goncharov; perhaps it was felt in America a hundred years ago, when Fenimore Cooper timidly began his literary career, I understand, by writing society novels set in the drawing-rooms of London, where he had never been. What it was that turned him bravely in the direction of the Redskin I don't know, but there it was, and his books made it seem natural for Americans to expect something interesting; from their country. With us the age of such a discovery is still in the present. Those of our novelists whose books are something more than imitative commercial products have had to write without models, and to descry their own patterns of life in this chaos; their work has indeed been

    All carved out of the carver's brain.

Attempting what had not been touched before they had to be original or perish, and they have not perished.

If one names a certain few of these, it is because their influence as part of what has been called the "literature of direction," has been so important. In these notes I can only suggest how our literature has begun to develop and perhaps indicate a few growing points. As a novel of "direction" as well as for its own greatness, H. H. Richardson's, trilogy, "The Fortunes of Richard Mahony," stands out; the only trouble is that it could not arrive several decades earlier. In Australian novels the literary pace was set in the nineties -- with no guarantee of maintenance -- by a novelist like Boldrewood, who for all his robust qualities had a "colonial" attitude and observed the conventional formula of the happy ending. If at that time we had had an H. H, Richardson, somewhat as South Africa had as her literary initiator, Olive Schreiner, the doors of opportunity for our genuine literary expression would almost certainly have been forced open long ago, and publishing houses would have become active far sooner. As it is, the existence of the Mahony trilogy has made publishers less reluctant to handle Australian books of literary quality, and readers less automatic in their demand for a happy ending at all costs. It used to be assumed, at least by publishers, that an Australian novel would give its characters plenty of physical adventures, plenty of "out-west," but no complex adventures of the spirit. That we are just beginning to live that down is due largely to the world-wide respect for H. H. Richardson, who, after her great European success with "Maurice Guest," thought it worth while to give 15 years to the construction of a novel on Australia's major historical problem -- that of the immigrant in all his resistances, faced by this new country in all its early crudities.

A True Prospector

The literary courage of a novelist like Katharine Prichard it is impossible to express except in comparing her with a prospector in the desert, and having only a few tools. In "Working Bullocks" she first found her true tune, weaving into her prose the bush sounds and words and little songs that nobody had known how to combine before, and thus presenting her illusions -- a bullock team in a jarrah forest, men working in a timber mill, lovers picnicking in a drowsy hillside noon. Her style is a very subtle web, but because she constructs it out of dead leaves and sticks as well as diamonds, its quality has often gone unnoticed. Her successive books have opened one window after another upon our scene; one of them, indeed, as an admirer wrote in a recent book, "Haxby's Circus," "moves like a gaily coloured beetle across the Australian panorama"; but to suggest as Professor Hancock did some time ago that Miss Prichard has merely covered our geography with descriptive writing is to miss her fathomless and unfailing human sympathy.

Novels from nowhere

There was F. D. Davison's beautiful small book, "Man Shy," cunningly reviewed once by Elzevir in such a way as to astound you when he at last revealed that the attractive, tragic little heroine was a wild cow. In an American edition just out there is no ambiguity, for the title is "Red Heifer." There were those unexpected books of crowded adventures and reminiscences, chronicles of the early days in the romantic Snowy River country, by Brent of Bin Bin: "Up the Country " and "Ten Creeks Run." Several years have passed since M. Barnard Eldershaw's decorative and four-square novel of old Sydney, "A House Is Built," was followed by a smaller canvas, "Green Memory," but this composite author has not said her last word. Leonard Mann's war novel, ''Flesh in Armour," in itself would justify a surmise that we were now adult: in his fearless adherence to invigorating fact and his few passages of lyrical ecstasy this writer shows that the novel is not his master, but his biddable slave.  

If like many people I am unwilling to believe that poetry should yield any of its real territory to prose, still I am convinced that the production of imaginative prose literature is necessary to any country to-day. What is a novel? "The development of character through narrative" is a definition that will serve. We need interpretation in such a form, and we are gradually getting what we need.  Our novelists are now, if not encouraged, at least permitted to write in the fullness of their talent. Some of their books, in a secondary function, may, like "Man Shy," act as our ambassadors abroad. 

First published in The Argus, 9 March 1935

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

Reprint: Vance Palmer: An Appreciation by K.S.P.

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Vance Palmer, who has won the first prize offered by "The Bulletin" for a serial this year, is a Queenslander, although he is at present living in Victoria. Last year he was also a prize dinner in this competition; and his recent novels and stories have been of such exceptional quality that no one is surprised at their success.

His many friends winner and admirers will be delighted, for Vance Palmer is one of those Lamb-like men whom everybody loves. His kindliness and charm of manner are reflected in his writing; as also the tranquil depths of his austere mind and sensitive humor. He has written poems and plays, essays and novels, the best known of which are: "The Forerunner" (poems), "The Black Horse," a one-act play, "The Man Hamilton," a novel, and "Men Are Human" to be published in book form presently.

After wandering about the world a good deal in his youth, inspecting a revolution in Mexico and journeying across Siberia to call on Tolstoy, Mr. Palmer lived some years in London, Paris and New York, contributing yarns of adventure and more serious sketches to the "Munsey Magazine," "Adventure," "The New Age" and other reviews. In 1913 he married Miss Nettie Higgins, a niece of Justice Higgins, herself a poet and critic of distinction, and renouncing dazzling prospects in England and America, came home to devote himself to a knowledge and expression of his own country and people.

So capable a craftsman might have made the easy fortune which is to be had by churning out horrors or cowboy romances. But Vance Palmer is an idealist, the most generous and single minded of men, and so devout in his service both to literature and this country that he has given the best he is capable of in his books always.

First published in The Daily News (Perth), 26 March 1930

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

Note: I wonder if the "K.S.P." here is Katharine Susannah Prichard.

If the achievement of Bernard O'Dowd in the development of Australia's literary life was to reconcile what I have had to call the belltopper and the moleskin, there have been other poets, slightly more recent in their activities, whose achievement it has been to take such a reconciliation for granted. As writers, both the hesitating colonial gentleman and the robustly crude bushman were to be followed by those who were neither childish, like the first, not adolescent, like the second, but adult. Australia, to a writer in this modern vein, does not seem, as America to Henry James, a meaningless and dreary place of exile. It is not a colony to exploit but a home and he grows up in it naturally and critically.

Consider in this light William Baylebridge, a writer so typical, such a symbol, that we should have to invent him, though we should hardly be clever enough. Like O'Dowd, this poet is conspicuous for a certain dignity and austerity, but these of a type all his own, differing from O'Dowd's more and more as you penetrate the stately avenue of words. His important book of 123 sonnets, "Love Redeemed," has just been published and made accessible in the ordinary way. One mentions this matter of publication because for more than 20 years this writer has been apt to appear in limited editions, privately printed, subtly circulated, very remote -- more remote even than the usual poetry in a "practical" community like ours. One further point is that when Baylebridge began to write -- his first book of poems appeared, I think, in 1912 -- and for long afterwards, he used the name of William Blocksidge. Those who read Baylebridge and therefore want more of him should not make the mistake of passing by a book with Blocksidge on the title page.  

An Individual Type

William Baylebridge presents throughout a peculiarly unswerving literary type. Whether writing in the strict sonnet or the most untrammelled of free verse, whether making verse or prose, he is always himself, a composite, an amalgam from his personal heritage and experiences, but above all, and at great distances of time, a unity. In diction he shows an eclectic archaism liable to be fused, very thoroughly with a racy modern slang, as in the prose of Shakespearian soldiery. His sensuous images, when concerned with landscape, are sometimes general, as if taken from a common poetic treasury, but taken with this poet's own strongly conceived purposes and rhythm ever in mind:

   The wind, that sedulous shepherd of the sky
      Has driven his flocks to their Hesperian fold
   To water them where pools how lucent lie!  
      And wash their purple fleece in lakes of gold.

Sometimes again his images spring from an individual vision which his style endows with a universality. In another of the new sonnets there is a characteristic passage where the very name of the wind, having a slight extra syllable, shakes the line: -

   Oft lo! on some veiled hint, the southerly woke
   And stirred the silence.

Baylebridge's ideas and sometimes his verse forms are heavily tinged with German literary influences which he experienced in his youth; influences of the more epigrammatic and lyrical sort. Some of his brief early lyrics in "Moreton Miles" were surely influenced by Heine.   As for his prose style, at least in fiction, I have an admission to make. There is only one man whose work, from its style and subject-matter, I was once inclined to ascribe to Baylebridge. That was Mr. A. W. Wheen, whose "Two Masters," an unforgettable short story of the war, appeared perhaps 10 years ago in the London "Mercury" and has often been reprinted in anthologies and as a small chapbook. The man who found he could not serve two masters was a soldier in the Australian forces, who, on account of his intimate knowledge of German, was detailed as a spy. Behind the German lines he involuntarily makes the most intimate friendship of his life, the two men leading and thinking together in excitement and joy. When the hour strikes for the work he has come to   do, the spy cannot bring himself to complete it, but walks out into a barrage on No Man's Land. This story, with its dignity and fullness was not, after all, by Baylebridge author of "An Anzac Muster," with its chain of stories. Mr. Arthur Wheen, also an Australian, is an author in his own right, and as a translator has been responsible for perhaps the most famous of all German war-books. The   resemblance in style between the two writers is remarkable, to judge from "Two Masters." Striking, too, was the coincidence that two Australians should be so closely intimate with German literary expression.

Epigram and Essay

For the rest, Baylebridge's prose style in epigram and essay is his own. In a curious book of related fragments, called "National Notes," he set down part of his credo some years ago. If I have called him the examiner perhaps some of these notes will go far to explain why, though the same questioning -- not wistful, like O'Dowd's, but rather an assured challenge -- pervades his poems, too.  

    The time has arrived for a judicious examination of our convictions, our principles, our dreams.

    Leave the past and live in the present; in the mind of the present even must the past be conceived. Let not the present live at the cost of future.

    We would fling large gifts, fling gifts with both hands into the abyss of the future.

Baylebridge very early evolved for himself a diction that seems always competent to express his particular view of life -- vigorous yet subtle; a diction nobody else could use. With the sweep of Elizabethan rhetoric, yet with the vision of a new country always before his eyes, he can use old, robust words and make them his own: some of them being rather Latin words that peered into English, centuries ago, and then withdrew, words we could have done with very well. "The utile canons," he writes in one sonnet, and then --

   Who lifted man from earth ignores his fuss,
      His queasy coils of overconsciousness,
   Strong Nature, working out of sight in us, 
      Compels us, without choice, to her redress 
   Upon this flesh Nature descends and thrills it, 
      Thrills it with godlike impulse, makes it one
   With the energy that quickens heaven and fills it:
      Through this, through love, the will of God is done.
   The lover through and through then touches being,
      Explores the abyss of self, stands in amaze --
   The affined one too. And both, in that deep seeing,
      A thousand years beyond each other gaze --     
         And gather into a moment, goal of goals,
         The myriad dreams of their prenatal souls. 

I have been led on to transcribe the whole sonnet! It is for the reader to see how the man who uses half-forgotten, yet vivid, words, such as "queasy coils" and "affined," can somehow handle, in verse, a prosy word such as "fuss" and make it work hard and well. If may be said, indeed, that Baylebridge wears neither the Victorian's belltopper nor the bushman's moleskins. His costume, worn as naturally as a bird wears its feathers, has something of the Elizabethan about it, a hint of inconspicuous Australian khaki, yet the general contour of modern man. If he has suffered as well as gained by being an Australian, it is in this way, that to be a writer in this country is to be a disregarded person engaged in a freak occupation, and there may creep into the words of even the boldest and least apologetic of poets a slight note of isolation, a take-it-or-leave it obscurity of phrase. Past any such obscurities, however, comes flooding Baylebridge's strong assurance that we can share in the whole of life; that we are not, as the phrase goes, cut-off and isolated, but here, and ready for the future.

First published in The Argus, 2 March 1935

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

Reprint: Baylebridge's New Poems

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Although he has lived in Sydney for the last 20 years, since returning to Australia from England, William Baylebridge is Brisbane-born and educated, an old pupil of the East Brisbane State school and the Brisbane Grammar. He is the greatest poet Queensland has produced.

Baylebridge's poetry is frequently very obscure, but his lines are as polished as an agate; and he is one of the few really accomplished writers of poetry in Australia. His latest volume is entitled "Sextains"; and, like, all that he has published of recent years, it has been issued from his own private Tallabila Press, beautifully printed and delicately bound. In this work Mr. Baylebridge is as keen a craftsman as he is a poet, always a lover of the beautiful.

What he calls 'Sextains' are poems of six lines, each complete in itself. In the sonnet he has no equal in Australian poetry, although many of those in "Love Redeemed" are obscure in meaning and full of the conceits of the 17th century poets, who have had on him a curiously marked influence. In the same way he has made himself a master of the sextet, a vehicle of verse that is rarely used because of its rhythmic difficulties and its need for compression. Mr. Baylebridge has collected 40 of them. That entitled "The Miracle" is an illustration of his mastery of this kind of verse:

   My heart: its birds away, its branches bare,
      Swooned in eclipse; the wind through these that sighed,
   Chill-breath'd, seemed 'burthening, in some lost despair.
      Its perished music and its withered pride.
      You laughing came: it woke; and flowering wide,
            All Spring was there!

All are like that: lines of intense beauty, but obscure in meaning until you seek it out. However obscure he may appear to some readers, he is certainly not slovenly. He knows what he wants to express, and he will search until he has found the one word that will serve the purpose. Like the poetry of Chris Brennan, it is not popular, but popularity is not one of the things that William Baylebridge has ever sought.      

"SEXTAINS," by William Baylebridge (private Tallabila Press, Sydney).

First published in The Courier-Mail, 28 January 1939

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

Looking back over our hundred years, as we have lately been taught to do, we may be struck by the appearance of maturity, or at least of "grown-upness," in the early figures that chiefly catch the eye. Ladles in large and formal dress, gentlemen in belltopper and appropriate whiskers; houses with the term"gentleman's residence" written all over them-these are what we see when we pore over a record such as E. M. Robb's "Early Toorak and District," or that more recent treasure trove, "Georgiana's Journal." Each man described was a gentleman, a mister Whether in a town mansion or a station homestead he would never forget the social order; he and his friends, exiles from far-away countries would ever attempt to reproduce and sustain the ways of the different world they had left. Fashions in clothes, art, or literature would take some time to arrive here, and they would be all the more respected. Culture was something imported at great expense. If you painted, your subject -- unless it were a portrait or unless you were the sensitive Georgiana Mccrae -- would be a stag by a Yorkshire ford or an angel in Italy. If you wrote, literature was something abstract, a commentary on what had been brought to you by the mail; you wrote with your blinds down, your eyes averted from the scene. Or if, indeed, you decided to write some chapter of colonial experiences, a Peter Possum's Portfolio or Christopher Cockle's experiences you were carefully facetious and wrote as a Gulliver in Lilliput; in short, you were a belltopper.

Two solid books on Australian literature written in 1866 by G. B. Barton for   the International Exhibition in France -the whole thing is incredible enough -- show us the literary intentions of the period. One called "Literature in New South Wales" is devoted to specimens of work, but apart from Wentworth's early verse and a long descriptive poem by Charles Harpur there is little to make a reader remember that he is in a new country. There is distinct avoidance of atmosphere, the prose is rhetorical, abstract, above all imitative and sterile. Barton himself has unusually constructive ideas and a forthright style in the companion volume he even lays down propositions and makes demands still ahead of us in 1934 -- that we ought immediately to have literary and general reviews, build- ing up an intellectual life of our own. When he said that we needed more vigorous and firsthand intellectual experiences he knew what he was asking, for had he not been reading through all that had been produced here? He seemed to suggest that it was not enough to keep the world safe for imported belltoppers; that, in fact, we needed to grow up. Indeed those early writers, as we now see them, perhaps unkindly, seem like children playing "Father." They were not grown up; too many of them were for avoiding the real problems of this new world and of life in general. As colonials, not yet Australians, they were for making a fortune and going home with it.

The Old Bush Songs

Meanwhile, outside the view of these litterateurs, certain people were beginning to grow up. Bushmen in moleskins, scrambling for wood and water and the means of existence, miners and bullock-drivers, overlanders and informal explorers of all sorts -- these were the youth of Australia, their words the expression of a fumbling adolescence. You sometimes hear them still if you find one of the old bush songs, in its half comical roughness, suggesting a boy's voice breaking. Outrageous as they must have seemed to the frock-coated gentlemen, whose own words were a preservative of recognised cultural commodities, these old songs often harked back to more ancient traditions, those of the broadsheet ballad and its mysteriously anonymous predecessors. These bush songs are disappearing. Having an inkling of one of them, I asked more than once if any wireless listener could reclaim it, and this was recently done by taking the words down gradually from the memory of an old man who had not heard or sung them for 50 years.  This song without an author has a theme as old as the Crusaders at least-that of the young woman willing to dress as a page and go with her lover to the wars, the crusade of the bush being the industrial struggle. The transposition is grotesque, but by no means a parody; there is at least adolescent seriousness.

    Oh! hark, the dogs are barking,
      I can no longer stay.  
   The men they are out mustering,    
      I heard the squatter say.
   I am off down to Yanko,
      Though it's many a weary mile,
   And I'll meet the Sydney shearers    
      On the banks of the Condamine.

   Oh! Willy, lovely Willy,
      I'll go along with you,  
   I'll cut off all the auburn fringe  
      And be a shearer, too.  
   I'll shear and keep your tally, love,
      While ringer-o you shine,  
   And I'll wash your greasy moleskins out
      On the banks of the Condamine.

   Oh, Nancy, dear, oh, Nancy,
      With me you cannot go.
   The squatter he gave orders, love,
      No woman should do so.
   For your delicate constitution
      Is not equal unto mine.
   To stand the constant tigering
      On the banks of the Condamine.

There may be variant readings, there may be more verses; but such is the Condamine ballad, arising from the moleskins, the bushmen. Between the gentlemanly, retarding rhetoric of writers such as Richard Rowe and the rough-and-tumble illiteracy of these eager campfire balladists, how was a literature to emerge? Gordon, for all we can regret in him, did at times, as in "To the Wreck," achieve almost an impossible reconciliation of the two; but a genuine literature would have to discard more than it could retain from such beginnings. It would retain from the derivative sterility of the colonial gentleman only his respect for our literary inheritance: "Let us not lightly cast aside anything that belongs to the Past, for only with the Past can we rear the fabric of the Future." It would retain from the inconsequence of the balladists their feeling for romance, "quod semper, quod ubique"; also the spirit of a new comradeship, of what Lawson in his stories was to call mateship, and what Tom Collins in "Such is Life," was to make the corner-stone of his philosophy. This was only at the close of the last century when for the most part the gentlemen had discarded frock coats and belltoppers in favour of unimposing sacs and felts, while the bushmen, glowing self-conscious in regard to their naive songs, were represented by deliberate verse-writers, who used and adapted their refrains. Someone was needed to appreciate at the same time the two origins,   the belltoppers and the moleskins; to show that there was an exercise for intellect, for subtlety, for discrimination, in our own ways and works.  

An Expatriate's Lament

Did some colonial literary gentlemen, aghast at the prospect, write these words?:

An Australian to excel, has just ten times as much to learn as a European. We lack the deeper sense. We have neither taste nor tact nor power. How should we have them? Our crude and garish climate, our silent past, our deafening present, the constant pressure about us of unlovely circumstance, are as void of all that nourishes and prompts and inspires the artist, as my sad heart is void of bitterness in saying so!

No, the writer, of course, was Henry James, and he began with "An American," yet the parallel holds. When in another passage, writing to W. D. Howells, he lamented, as a restless expatriate, that America had no ivied churches, no Eton, no Westminster, no Royal Courts, no -- the list was enormous -- he asked, "With all these absent what is left?"

"What remains," said Howell stoutly, "what remains for us is simply the whole of life"; and he went on writing moderately well, his quiet novels that gave heart to later Americans to write better ones. The whole of life! Who was to show us that we too could share in the whole of life, and were not mere fugitive colonials clinging to a spot on its circumference? We have not been without our seers.

First published in The Argus, 16 February 1935


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

Reprint: Review

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POEMS AND SONGS by HENRY KENDALL. Published by J. R. Clarke, 356, George-street, and printed by F. Cunninghame, 184, Pitt-street, Sydney. 114 pages, 8vo.

We are always happy to receive fresh flowerets for the Chaplet of Australian Poesy, and it is thus with feelings of unaffected pleasure that we take up the neat little volume of poems recently published by Mr. Henry Kendall, some of whose compositions (distinguished by their smoothness of versification and elevated turn of thought) have already appeared in these columns. Mr. Henry Kendall is a poet of much promise, a native of New South Wales, whose inborn genius has already gained for him a respectable standing as a colonial writer, and who is, doubtless, destined, at no very remote period, to assume an honourable place amongst the constantly increasing ranks of British authors. Already the English Athenaeum has made favourable mention of the name of this young Australian, and has quoted a set of verses written by him -- doing justice to the abilities of the youthful aspirant after fame, and encouraging him to proceed onward in the toilsome ascent of Mount Parnassus. It is an old adage -- so old that it remains embalmed in the idiom of a dead language -- that "A poet is born -- not made," and Mr. Kendall would certainly appear to be one of the fortunate few who may fairly advance his claim to be so described. The forty-five poems which are now placed before the public in this little work are an incontestable proof of the talent of the author -- of his passionate love of the sublime and beautiful, and of his ambition to give utterance to thoughts that may long live in the stately rhythm and sonorous cadences of the English tongue. One very pleasing characteristic of his writings is the the obvious fact that he delights to draw his imagery from Australian scenery, and is evidently thoroughly familiar with its distinctive peculiarities, and its many singular beauties-and deeply impressed with that vague and dreamy tone of thought generated by a personal contemplation and consideration of all that is to be seen in the wilds of the bush, whether in the pathless solitudes of the interior or in the woody mist-laden glens of our picturesque coast scenery. Mr. Kendall resided, we believe, for some time in the beautiful southern district of Kiama, and expatiates with all a poet's enthusiasm upon the glorious scenery with which that secluded and lovely locality everywhere abounds; its rugged barrier of mountains, its pleasant, rolling hills, verdant valleys, pretty homesteads, and sparkling streamlets something rather unusual in Australia), seem to have awakened in the soul of the young Australian all the spirit of poetry. In the third poem of the series he thus expresses himself in language which will give the reader a very fair idea of his style.

      Kiama slumbers robed with mist
      All glittering in the dewy light
         That, brooding o'er
         The shingly shore,
      Lies resting in the arms of night!
      And foam-flecked crags with surges chill,
      And rocks embraced by cold-lipped spray,
      Are moaning loud where billows crowd,
      In angry numbers, up the bay.
      The holy stars come looking down
      On windy heights and swarthy strand;
         And Life and Love --
         The cliffs above --
      Are sitting fondly hand in hand!

The following poem on "The Muse of Australia" contains some very fine lines, and will be read with pleasure, although it is not entirely free from a degree of carelessness and obscurity which might have been beneficially avoided, especially in the second stanza. The first verse appears to us to be, as a description of scenery, particularly graphic and well expressed:

   Where the pines with the eagles are nestled in rifts,
   And the torrent leaps down to the surges,
   I have followed her, clambering over the clifts,
   By the chasms and moon-haunted verges.
   I know she is fair, as the angels are fair,
   For have I not caught a faint glimpse of her there;
   A glimpse of her face, and her glittering hair,
         And a hand with the Harp of Australia!    

   I never can reach you, to hear the sweet voice
   So full with the music of fountains!  
   Oh, when will you meet with that soul of your choice,  
   Who will lead you down here from the mountains!  
   A lyre-bird lit on a shimmering space,  
   It dazzled mine eyes, and I turned from the place,
   And wept in the dark for a glorious face,
         And a hand with the Harp of Australia!

Mr. Kendall has written, we perceive, several poems in which he has idealised the war songs of the aboriginal natives, and thrown a veil of poetry over much that in the actual facts of savage life cannot but be homely and unpleasing, if not absolutely barbarous. In this he has done no more than avail himself of a poet's license -- seizing the more picturesque points as they presented themselves, and passing over all that interfered with the more ideal. Viewed in that light "Kooroora," "Urara," and "Ulmarra" are poems that will not be read without some considerable pleasure. The "Song of the Cattle Hunters," "The Wild Kangaroo," "The Barcoo," and "The Opossum Hunters" are pieces of far greater merit, and contain many passages evincing powers of description, and a degree of thought which would do honour to a much more experienced writer. Mr. Kendall is always pleasing where he depends solely on his own unassisted powers, and only fails when he adopts the ideas and mannerisms of other writers. This he does sometimes (perhaps unconsciously) in a style that cannot be approved of. The grand, quaint metre of Edgar Poe has, doubtless, a peculiar charm in its rhythmical cadence, but his obscurities are defects which it is impossible to justify, and therefore most undesirable to imitate. It is also, we must here remark, much to be regretted that the poem entitled "The Maid of Gerringong" should not have been carefully revised for the author before it went to press. It contains (on page 92) lines which are mere adaptations from the second, third, and fourth stanzas of a poem that appeared in the Nation newspaper about fifteen years ago -- the exquisite beauty of which doubtless captivated the taste of the youthful writer until imagination and memory must have become absolutely blended together. The lines we refer to are as follows :

   Did the strangers come around you, in the far-off foreign land!
   Did they lead you out of sorrow, with kind face and loving hand!
   Had they pleasant ways to court you-had they silver words to bind?
   Had they souls more fond and loyal than the soul you left behind?
   Do not think I blame you, dear one! Ah! my heart is gushing o'er
   With the sudden joy and wonder, thus to see your face once more,  
   Happy is the chance which joins us after long long years of pain;
   And oh, blessed was whatever sent you back to me again!

The
name of the author is unknown to us, but it was printed under the signature of "Mary."  

It is always more agreeable to praise than to censure, however gently, and we have thus much pleasure in concluding this notice by republishing Mr. Kendall's admirable poem "The rain comes sobbing to the door," which is, to our taste, one of the best in the whole book.

THE RAIN COMES SOBBING TO THE DOOR.

   The night grows dark, and weird, and cold; and thick drops patter on the pane;
   There comes a wailing from the sea ; the wind is weary of the rain.
   The red coals click beneath the flame, and see, with slow and silent feet,
   The hooded shadows cross the woods to where the twilight waters beat!
   Now fan-wise from the ruddy fire, a brilliance sweeps athwart the floor;
   As, streaming down, the lattices, the rain comes sobbing to the door:
         As, streaming down the lattices,
         The rain comes sobbing to the door,

   Dull echoes round the casement fall, and through the empty chambers go,
   Like forms unseen whom we can hear on tip-toe stealing to and fro,
   But fill your glasses to the brims, and through a mist of smiles and tears,
   Our eyes shall tell how much we love to toast the shades of other years!

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 October 1862

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

One of the major features of the exhibition of Australian books, which is, perhaps, the most interesting and surprising facet of Australian Authors' Week, is the number and importance of the volumes written by women.

The list of those who have won recognition, both at home and abroad, is long, and, considering our short literary history, and the even shorter time that has elapsed since women entered this field, imposing.

Victorian-born Henry Handel Richardson (Mrs. J. G. Robertson) is one of those whose names first leap to mind when a survey of Australian literary endeavor is being made. Critics in England and America were quick to notice and acclaim the splendid work in her first novel, "Maurice Guest," published in 1908, and those who praised her in those early days had their prophecies more than borne out when the three books making up her famous trilogy, "The Fortunes of Richard Mahony," appeared.

This author's work lacks the sensational pages and meretriciously "clever" touches that would undoubtedly make it better-known among that great reading public which can provide a novelist with ocean-going yachts and several cars, or condemn her to comparative financial obscurity.

But by a relatively small audience-- numerous enough overseas to be important--Henry Handel Richardson is regarded as an outstanding figure, one whose writings will undoubtedly remain when more talked-of books are sifted out on to the dust-heap of mediocrity.

In Helen Simpson we have another woman whose reputation in her own land pales beside the acclaim her books have brought her in other English speaking countries. Miss Simpson, although she has written for the stage, is best known by her novels. "The Woman On the Beast" was a particularly fine example, both of her ability as a story-teller and of her craftsmanship. "Boomerang," a novel that could be compared with any book written by a woman of recent years, won her the distinction of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1931. Her latest book, "Saraband For Dead Lovers," will be no disappointment to admirers of her talent.

Other Famous Figures

The name of Katherine Susannah Pritchard is better known in this country, as is her work, than that of either Henry Handel Richardson or Helen Simpson. "Coonardoo," joint winner with "A House is Built" of the first Bulletin Novel Competition, brought her name well before the public, but even before that she had made her own circle of admirers with earlier novels.

Possibly no book written by an Australian, and very few written by any woman, has met with the unanimous praise that critics gave to Miss Christina Stead's "Salzburg Tales" on its publication in London. It was compared, and not unreasonably, in scope and understanding and craftsmanship with the most famous classic collections of its type. The "Salzburg Tales" is certainly a splendid achievement, and one that, even without Miss Stead's later book, "Seven Poor Men of Sydney," would qualify her for an eminent position in the ranks of contemporary writers.

Success came to G. B. Lancaster with the publication of "Pageant," one of the most colorful and capable of Australian historical novels. This book sold extraordinarily well not only in the Commonwealth but overseas, and, as a picture of the Tasmania of a bygone day, has certainly given the author a definite place in Australian letters.

Mention has been made of "A House is Built." This novel of early Sydney was the work of two women, Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw, and is an excellent piece of work, and a fine kaleidoscope of the era with which it deals.

Poetry and Criticism

To do full justice to the fine work that has been done, and is being done, by Australian women in literature would demand a book rather than a short article. Still unmentioned are novelists of the calibre of Winifred Birkett, whose "Earth's Quality" was recently reviewed by us, Henrietta Drake-Brockman, author , of "Blue North," Mary Marlowe, and, among the writers of juvenile books, Ethel Turner and Mary Grant Bruce.

Then there are the writers of verse: Mary Gilmore and Dorothea MacKellar, whose names have become household words, and Zora Cross, some, of whose best sonnets have not yet achieved their full recognition. Nor, in a country sadly lacking in critical standards, should Nettie Palmer be overlooked. Mrs. Palmer's flair for work of good quality, her honesty of outlook, and genuine critical ability place her in that numerically inconspicuous, outnumbered band of Australian critics who know.

First published in The Australian Women's Weekly, 13 April 1935

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

Reprint: David McKee Wright by J. Le Gay Brereton

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I think I have not hated any man. -- Dark Rosaleen.

David McKee Wright once told me that he tried to make his poems "simple, sensuous, and sweet." It was an accident of memory, as well as a natural bias, that made him substitute sweetness for passion in the Miltonic trinity, but all readers of "An Irish Heart," his most important published collection, will agree that he achieved remarkable success in his aim. Simplicity is everywhere, in the definite outlines, the honest thought, the dreams that unfold like green leaves the clear expression. And no less noticeable is the profusion of his sensuous imagery that makes us see, hear, and touch what he describes -- for example, the

         Winged palace of delight,
      Against the pale sky lifting green
         Its soaring peaks of malachite;

And the whisper and murmuring mirth when --

      The tall trees talk
      Where the dry leaf laps the stalk,
      And the summer wind goes by,
      Making a laugh and a sigh;

And the light touch of soft lips when the fairy was gracious to blind Ryan--

      Och, she kissed like a butterfly's wing,
      When it touches a weed on the wall.

And sweetness seems the most essential of all his poetic qualities, for it is the constant expression of what was naturally in his heart. It is in his quiet love of beautiful things, his tender humour, his faith in human nature, his hopes for the future of mankind, and the musical modulations of his verse. And sweetness does not exclude passion; but, in Wright's poetry, is often the fine savour of the heady wine. Passion with him is not violent, however deep, however exquisite. Everything seems to be magically softened and transfigured, and realities have the charm of what is at once remote and familiar, like fresh and clear reflections, or memories recovered and represented in dreams. He can be forceful, but he never lacks artistic delicacy. He handles words with the same sure and caressing touch with which I have seen him lifting and turning the unset gemstones which he loved for their colour and form and lustre.

As a metrical artist, he made an exceedingly valuable contribution to our national literature. The Australian muse had been too often slatternly, a virago carelessly singing a heartstirring strain in an uncultivated voice. Wright was skilled and careful, and could take liberties with his metres without clumsily doing them injury. Influenced definitely by the modern school of Irish poets, chiefly W. B. Yeats, he could vary stress and quantity in weaving a lovely wavering pattern of words. And sometimes as the voice lingers over a series of long syllables, one feels how he must have delighted in the sounds that he dropped with that reiterated emphasis:

      'Tis far away and far to keep,
      And winding is the road,
      And I have fifty fields to reap
      With white corn sowed.

Those who have heard him repeat or read verses that he appreciated will know just how the music of his own poems can best be rendered. A soft voice was his, answering consciously to every wave of the verse as an exultant swimmer feels himself rise and fall to the full rhythm of the sea.

Perhaps from his Irish fairies he learned something of his suave manner and his insidious speech, for, city-dweller though he was, there was something of the faun about him. Irresponsible, impulsive, warm-hearted, and humorously tolerant, he moved among men, but how different was their world generally from his. Where they saw stone walls and rigid barriers, he ran with the shee over the green hills and felt the freedom of the wind. Holding the leafy wealth which is given to those who have kissed the lips of the good people, he was careless of worldly riches. An indefatigable worker, producing vast quantities of marketable literary and journalistic ware, he was able to win money though he could never keep It. Meticulous in his handling of verse, he was blithely careless of his handling of money. One afternoon, when I was lunching with him rather late, he cashed a cheque for me to save me the trouble of going to the bank. That, for him, was the end of the transaction. He forgot about it. Many a long month afterwards he sent me the cheque. Imploring me to tell him how it had come Into his possession, and apologising for having neglected to apply it for some charitable purpose. Those who knew him will understand. He was well paid for his work, and he was lavish in reward of those who did him service. So genorous a man must needs die poor, for he lived as though he possessed the purse of Fortunatus. He has left a fine heritage for all Australians, no doubt; but it is in the delicate workmanship of precious verse.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 February 1928

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

Reprint: The Unread Australian by C.J. Dennis

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Refusal to recognise one's country's faults (said the small bald monologist) is no part of any man's patriotic duty; if, indeed, patriotism is a quality still to be commended.

We Australians have recently been told by a friendly American, whose opinion we are forced to respect, that we are in no sense to be regarded as a book-loving people, since, in the matter of libraries, we are behind the nations and behind the times.

To other native Australians whose early environment was such as mine, this statement may come as a shock to their national pride, and call for some readjustment of values. In every home that I occupied as a youth in the Australian hinterland there existed a library or at least a fairly well-stocked book case; and so it was in the homes of my intimate friends. Thus I assumed, rather indolently, that these were typical Australian homes.

This belief was further strengthened by a statement then current that, in the matter of verse, if not of other literary matters, Australians bought (and presumably read) more books in proportion to population than any other people. That statement received wide publicity and general credence in my young days, and we rather plumed ourselves upon it. Today I have grave doubts about it.

Upon my removal to the city (went on the monologist, helping himself from my cigarette case), I naturally consorted with rather bookish men - men who took some interest in modern literature and had at least a passing knowledge of the major classics. Not that we were intellectually snobbish in any degree. On the contrary, such attention as we gave to the reading of books (chiefly for pleasure) we regarded as a quality shared by all fellow Australians of average intelligence. Again, this was a rather lazy assumption, born of national pride, that we took little pains to justify.

And side by side with this assumption, was that other one - so easily acquired in those days and in the environment I inhabited - that Australians were the salt of the earth, unequalled in intelligence, initiative, commonsense, sterling honesty and freedom from trammelling tradition. For tradition appealed to me at that time, never as a source of inspiration but ever as a handicap to a mentally bright and freedom-loving people.

This rabid Australianism was not perhaps altogether a bad thing at that period; for its exaggerated tendency did help to combat a certain anti-Australianism in regard to industry and manufacture that was concurrently rife in many quarters.

Do not assume, however, that since then I have swung to the other extreme and slunk into the slough of a sense of national inferiority. Far from it. My opinion of my fellow Australian is still high, but it is qualified by chastening experience.

I do not know if or how my book-loving friends of the old days awoke to a measure of disillusionment that served to temper and sanely modify our exaggerated patriotism. To me the awakening came with a series of shocks hotly resented at the time.

The first shattering explosion came, I remember, when an artistic friend, returning after a long sojourn abroad, referred to Australia ("His own Australia," I remember thinking) as "an almost purely agricultural community with a very limited appreciation of literature and an artistic and aesthetic sense that was almost negligible."

I fiercely denied the charge and began to argue warmly. But as he cited instance after instance, made point after point, I found myself seeking excuses. Then, realising that the necessity for excuse betrayed a losing case, I fell sulkily silent while he proceeded to harrow my tenderest susceptibilities with bitter home-truths.

After that I began, so to speak, to sit up and take notice. I began to make inquiries, to employ private tests and engage in devious and secret questionnaires that left me wondering how and where I had acquired my estimate of the well-read Australian.

Somewhere about that time I heard and accepted the true tale of the eminent Victorian pastoralist who, about to entertain an honored visitor from overseas, decided to install a library to impress his distinguished guest. Having erected costly shelves, his next move was to telegraph to a city bookseller for "half a ton of books."

That is an instance, exaggerated slightly if you like, of the average Australian's attitude toward books as a means even of pleasurable relaxation.

And by average Australian I do not refer only to the sport-loving artisan or clerk or shop hand but also to the professional man, the merchant, and to many others regarded as our leading citizens both in town and country.

The truth may be unpleasant to many, but the fact remains that, as a nation, Australia is not a book-loving land. And I know that librarians, publishers and booksellers will support that truth.

The luxury of reading is, after all, rather an acquired taste, and if the average busy Australian has failed to acquire it, that is not so much to his own discredit as to that of our educators, our leaders of thought and, in a measure, to our Governments.

By the way (concluded the monologist) are those imported cigarettes in your case? Thanks. I'll smoke my own; they're Australian.

First published in The Herald, 30 June 1934

Reprint: Larrikins' Laureate by J.K.E.

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C. J. Dennis has the distinction of being one of the few in Australia (or anywhere else) who has made a living by writing poetry. "The Sentimental Bloke" went into five editions in three months. In less than 18 months it sold 66,145 copies.

How this and other successful books of verse by the same author came to be written, and something of the man who wrote them, are described in 'The Making of A Sentimental Bloke," by Alec. H Chisholm (Georgian House, Melbourne, 10/6). Strangely enough Dennis, "the laureate of the larrikin," was a country-bred boy. He was brought up very strictly by two maiden aunts in Laura, South Australia. Mr. Chisholm suggests that the contrast between his up-bringing and his subsequent literary output is not without its psychological significance. However, at 17 he was standing on his own feet and discovering values for himself. He became junior clerk to a solicitor, was for a time on the staff of the "Critic," a social weekly and then at the age of 29 founded an illustrated journal, "The Gadfly" -- devoted to cheerfully malicious comment on the Australian scene at large, and in particular to light satirical verse by its editor, C. J. Dennis."

Financial difficulties ended that venture, but not before it had given him an avenue to express his undoubted talent for verse-writing. In 1908 an artist friend, Hal Waugh, established him at Toolangi, 40 miles east of Melbourne, and here he lived for the remaining 30 years of his life. A few years later he met Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Roberts, who introduced him to a fraternity of writers and artists whom they entertained at their home at Sassafras. He had already published his "Backblock Ballads" (1913) and a few verses that were the forerunners of "The Sentimental Bloke." But the publication of that book in 1915 gave him immediate security and confidence for the future. His subsequent output, "Ginger Mick," "The Glugs of Gosh," "Doreen," and other books contributed to his popularity.

C. J. Dennis's own contacts with the types of people in his books was perhaps more slight than his skill in delineating them would suggest. Mr. Chisholm suggests that he drew some inspiration from Louis Stone's novel of larrikin life, "Jonah" (1911). Stone is quoted as having said: "That man Dennis is a scoundrel. He has taken his ideas from my book. I should like to meet him and tell him what I think of him!"

Original Creations.

Nevertheless, Dennis's characters were original creations, and whatever literary derivations he might have made from Stone's book or elsewhere cannot detract from his own achievement. In addition, he gave permanence to the type of larrikin slang current at the time. In later years he married and lived in his quiet hills home at Toolangi, where the spirit of the bush-bred boy found peace and happiness. These years produced his final volume, "'The Singing Garden" (1935).

"Dennis," writes Mr. Chisholm, "developed a sustained and sustaining interest in the sunlit world about him... Wild birds were not subjects for study, but 'mates' and, in some instances, 'personalities.' Two especially solemn-looking kookaburras became known as Bernard O'Dowd and Archie Strong, after a couple of eminent literary figures in Melbourne." Here, because Dennis was unable to visit Melbourne himself, Masefield went to see him. Of Dennis at the time of his death, Masefield said: "A charming fellow and a delightful host...Poetry with such a universal appeal, reaching all classes of readers, must have great merits."

While one wonders what is his appeal to the present generation, it is interesting to note that one of the latest additions to the Australian Pocket Library was "The Songs of A Sentimental Bloke," with the original illustrations by Hal Gye.

First published in The West Australian, 21 September 1946

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

Reprint: Queen of the Colonnies by Nettie Palmer

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Reading with great interest the description given in the "Courier" by "Nut Quad" of a voyage in 1861 from England to Australia, it did not take long before the name of the ship, "The Queen of the Colonies," roused quite another train of thought. To me, there will always be two n's in "Colonnies," because here, at Caloundra, the name is spelt so, carved on a tree. The tree is a shaky-looking old pandanus palm, exposed to the weather on the very edge of Moffatt's Headland. Those palms, though, seem to have the nine lives of a cat, holding on to the flimsiest of sandy soil long after their umbrella-like roots have been exposed to the air. The "Queen of the Colonnies" tree, then, embedded in grass and clay, may live there for centuries yet, if it is left untouched.

Nothing threatens its life, probably, so much as its extraordinary interest. People go to look at it, with its deeply carved inscription, and an impulse seems to make them want to knock the tree about; to carve something else on it, perhaps their own initials; or even to knock it down, though this has not been done yet. This tree's inscription goes back to the year before "Nut Quad's" description. In 1863 the "Queen of the Colonnies" was sailing in, when there was a death on hoard. For some reason it seemed better to have the burial on land so a boat put off for Moreton Island and the funeral took place there. When the boat set out on its return journey to the ship though it met with bad weather, so bad that it was driven right across to the mainland and wrecked near Caloundra Head. The boat's crew carved the name of their ship and the year 1863 on the tree. So far as as I can hear, they got away quite safely in the end, and the worst misfortune that happened to them has been that ever since every kind of false version of their adventure has been given. I may have some mistakes left in my version but at least I have given the barest bones of the story, and can hardly be far wrong. I have heard ten different accounts of it, I think. One, for instance printed last year in a Sydney paper with a photograph or the tree as it is at present, stated that the skipper's wife was buried at the foot of the tree, and that the boat was returning to the ship from Caloundra Head when it was wrecked. If this had been so, surely this inscription would have had some suggestion of an epitaph about it. At any rate, the other version does seem nearer the truth, and in any case it's a very exciting tree, standing there and staring over at South America.

Preservation of the Tree

What people now ask is, Who will guarantee the preservation of that tree? It stands on what is private property, I believe, but it is a place where everyone walks. It might be destroyed at   any time, as so many such accidental monuments are. What is the procedure for preserving them? They are best kept on their real position, though they would probably be safer in a museum. If they are to be left where they stand, with all the interest that is rent by their environment, I think they need to be put under some one's special care. It would be a loss to our already rather thin historical sense if such a link with the past were lost to Australia. Yet everything threatens it, from the universal small boy with his active tomahawk to the storms beating up from all sides on such a promontory.

Other Voyages

The account given by "Nut Quad" of life on such a sailing ship was very vivid, and makes our present-day voyages seem very artificially protected. I daresay there are a good many families in Australia which have kept a record of such a voyage. I can think of two: One is a voyage diary kept by a relative of mine, and presented in typescript to members of the family on the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in Australia. Read such a journal, you are struck chiefly, I think, by the sense of adventure that sustains whole groups of travellers. Not even the bad food, and the fact that it was doled out in a ration which each group had to cook for themselves, could outweigh the romance of porpoises and flying fish and the New Australia. In the second volume of "The Fortunes of Richard Mahony" there is another account of such a voyage, not given in detail on the way, but with the conditions sketched while the boat as in port. One thing that we find hard to grasp now is that you took your cabin furniture with you, including a carpet, if you wished to be comfortable. If you brought a carpet home with you on your cabin floor nowadays, you'd merely be suspected of trying to evade the Customs.

The Spirit of Adventure.

In those days people carried to sea hearts that were both more adventurous and more anxious than ours are now. Not that we are always safe, but there is a sense of travelling to scheduled time, a fortnight behind one ship, a fortnight in front of another, and the waves seem to be ignored -- to say nothing of the winds, whose co-operation was done without long ago. If it is dangerous to go to sea now, that is because every way of living has its dangers. After the Titanic disaster, Joseph Conrad, the lover of solid old wooden sailing ships, wrote explaining that if people went to sea in a ship like a large-sized biscuit tin they might expect to be stove in by an iceberg! Most of us, though, are cheerfully willing to be hypnotised by the sense of safety on board a huge liner. It is only people of far inland countries, like Central Europeans, who have ever asked me nervously about the voyage from Australia, "and can you bear to be for five weeks in constant danger of death!" One can bear it. The "Queen of the Colonnies" bore it for something like five months. It is good to remember the courage and energy of those days. Will we seem as courageous, 70 years hence, when our descendants are flying overseas and wondering how we stood the boredom of a five-weeks' voyage?

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 10 December 1927

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

Reprint: Australian Essays

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The occasional essay is a medium which is not much cultivated in Australia, probably because of lack of opportunity. Still, we can quote some good examples. For example, the gift has been exhibited by the late Sir Archibald Strong, Professor Murdoch, Mr. F. C. Phillips, and others of whom by no means the least is Mr. S. Elliott Napier. Mr. Napier is the author of several pleasant books of which we cherish grateful memories. But many will think that in this one he is at his best. The art of the occasional essay consists in taking any peg upon which to hang a light disquisition; sometimes merely humorous, sometimes with series implications. Here we have "the hansom cab" of literature so employed.

There is a range of reading and a happy allusiveness which reconcile one to Mr. Elliott Napier, even in apparent inconsistencies. Brains, he says, will always conquer brawn in the long run. School sport is in danger of being overdone. Travel, rather than school or sport, is the most educative influence. But he allows that it is not for all to travel, and that cricket, in which he would no doubt include other forms of sport, has played a great part in establishing and maintaining the ties of Empire. "For in this respect every 'test' team is a more efficient band of ambassadors than any that the chancelleries have known." Collecting antique allusions to the game of cricket, Mr. Elliott Napier has discovered that in its infancy a serf was pressed into the office of wicket-keeper, "a position which one would have thought to be eminently suitable for a knight, considering the advantages of his customary defensive armour plate." That is true, but in those days there were no appeals.

In his essay, "The Loveliest Lyric in the Language," Mr. Elliott Napier enters difficult country, and traverses it with signal success. In the conventional view, even of the British themselves, the British are a heavy, cloddish people, insusceptible to the spiritual claims of beauty. Yet even in the very materialistic ages the ability to turn a graceful lyric was part of the normal equipment of anyone who aspired to be someone. It was the better equivalent of the modern after-dinner orations. Jacobean profligates composed dainty and delicious verse. But these were agreeable play-things. Mr. Elliott Napier, rightly in our opinion, puts his money on Keats. He places his favourites in the following order:

(1) "Ode to a Nightingale."

(2) "Grecian Urn."

(3) "Melancholy."

(4) "Autumn."

Had we been the judges, we should have bracketed (1) and (2) as a dead heat, and placed "Autumn" third. But it is difficult to decide.

Quite one of the best things in the book is a parody on Macaulay's criticism of the poems of Robert Montgomery. In this case, Shakespeare is the target, and the travesty is admirably sustained. Shakespeare, an uncouth yokel, coming from nowhere, presumes to write plays for the stage. They are stuffed with colloquialisms, ungrammaticisms, solecisms, plagiarisms, anachronisms, verbosities, and neologisms. One queen might have said, "I am not amused." Another, her ancestor, might have said, "I was." These essays renew our hopes for the Australian essay. (Angus and Robertson; price 6/.)

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 October 1932

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

Reprint: An Australian Poet by Zadig

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Arthur Albert Dawson Bayldon is unquestionably one of the most remarkable men in Australia. He belongs to that great strange company Australia has succeeded in winning from the old world, men like Marcus Clark and Brunton Stephens and Adam Gordon, men who become more Australian than the Australians, and who voice our deeper feelings and aspirations better than we can ourselves. Bayldon has written some fine verse. Some of his sonnets may be placed side by side with all but the greatest. Here are a few lines entitled 'To Poesy," from the first Australian volume of poems, published in 1897: --   

   These vessels of verse, O Great Goddess, are filled with invisible tears,
   With the sobs and sweat of my spirit and her desolate brooding for years;
   See, I lay them -- not on thine altar, for they are unpolished and plain,
   Not rounded enough by the potter, too much burnt in the furnace of pain;
   But here on the dust, in the shadow, with a sudden wild leap of the heart,
   I kneel to tenderly kiss them, then in silence arise and depart.

The following sonnet on Marlowe is very
fine:-

   With Eastern banners flaunting in the breeze,
   Royal processions, sounding fife and gong,
   And showering jewels on the jostling throng,
   March to the tramp of Marlowe's harmonies.
   He drained life's brimming goblet to the lees.
   He recked not that a peer superb and strong
   Would tune great notes to his impassioned song,
   And top his cannonading lines with ease
   To the wild clash of cymbals we behold  
   The tragic ending of his youthful life;
   The revelry of kisses bought with gold;
   The jest and jealous rival and the strife;
   A harlot weeping o'er a corpse scarce cold,
   A scullion fleeing with a bloody knife.

The Man.

But the most interesting thing about Bayldon is himself. He is a man of great energy, unquestioned ability. And yet a certain childlike simplicity seems to quite unfit him for the struggle of life. Some men have the ability that succeeds. Bayldon has the ability that fails. This is what he recently said in a New South Wales weekly of his own varied life in Australia during the last twenty years:

To enumerate the various parts I have played would take a column. A few of marked contrast will give an inkling of my many experiences. I have been a private secretary and a swagman; a rouseabout and a phrenologist; a fancy swimmer, an editor, and a canvasser of a comic monthly; teacher of English composition and clothiers' agent among kanakas; platform lecturer on Buddhism and Irish subjects, and a tea-traveller; bock canvasser and motto-writer; insurance agent and picture-dealer -- and hundreds of other things.

Yet Bayldon is a man of high character, fine appearance, insinuating address, and is still five or six years on the right side of fifty. Nature has dowered him with many gifts, but she has denied him the gift of succeeding-as the world understands success. And yet there are a few men in Australia -- and I am proud to be one of them -- who would rather spend a night with Bayldon than with the King of England. For Bayldon, in spite of bis failures, in spite of the buffetings to which a hard business world has subjected his gentle spirit, carries the gold of poetry in his heart. The world may despise him, and society may know him not, but God has laid his finger upon his brow. He is in very truth of that great company of noblemen who receive, as Burns put it, the patent of their nobility direct from Almighty God.

A Strange Meeting.

I will never forget the night I first met Arthur Bayldon. It was very late, and I was walking home alone. A young man over-took me, introduced himself, said he knew me, had heard me lecture, and at once dived into a long and involved metaphysical harangue on the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and other small matters. I walked on in silent amazement. His voice was a fine one, and he knew how to use it. He had also, as I could see by the light   of an occasional lamp, finely chiselled features, and a flashing eye. Arrived at my residence he stood at the gate and continued his monologue. After this had gone on for about a couple of hours, I ventured to remind him that it was about 3 o'clock in the morning. He regarded the observation apparently as an irrevelance. What in the name of reason had that insignificant fact to do with the problems of God and immortality? I had, however, to assure him as   politely as possible that, although philosophy was interesting, sleep was imperative, and eventually he departed.

Poet and Book Canvasser.  

I got to know him more intimately afterwards. He came to the town for the double purpose of selling his first volume of poetry and giving exhibitions in fancy swimming. He played both parts admirably. Some of his poetry was excellent, and his swimming was superb. But it was in his capacity of canvasser of his own books that he used to shine most brightly. As a poet   his place is comparatively humble; as a book-canvasser he certainly stands alone, towering above all the motley crew like a veritable colossus. Once he gained entrance into a house his book was as good as sold -- sometimes to every member of the family. For he had a masterful manner, and an arresting gift of eloquence. "Do you love poetry?" he would ask insinuatingly. When the answer was negative or affirmative, he would at once proceed to pour himself out on the subject. '"Poetry," he would cry, standing in the middle of the room gesticulating, "is the voice of God in the heart of man. As Shelley has said, poets are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind." And then would follow what was really powerful and dramatic oration on all the poets, ancient and modern, dead and alive. The family, as a rule, would be entranced, and an hour or two later the exhausted rhetorician would sally forth, carrying with him the names of perhaps half-a-dozen subscribers in his pocketbook, and leaving behind him a memory never to be effaced. The book, when ultimately supplied, was not specially good value, but the oration itself was worth double the money.

A Queensland Newspaper Office.

In time Bayldon and I became very good friends. Indeed, he was one of many striking personalities who used to foregather at the office of the paper I was then con- ducting. Amongst these were Frank Morton, well known to readers of the Sydney "Bulletin," Mr. Rogers, a gentleman who had strange mania for writing books, and who was reputed to be connected with the great Coleridge family, Theodore Wright, a mysterious philosopher who was distinguished by the length of his hair and an unfaltering belief in astrology; Adam Tramp, who was then, as now, an anarchist of anarchists, and occasionally William Kidston, who is now Premier of Queensland. On one occasion I had a very heated argument with Theodore Wright. I had been expressing my profound belief in the monistic philosophy of Professor Clifford when Mr. Wright exclaimed:- "You are utterly mistaken. There is not one substance in the universe; there are three substances, matter, soul, and spirit."

"What is the difference between soul and spirit?" I asked.

"You would not understand if I told you," he replied. "You will have to evolve to a higher plane before you can understand."

"But," I said indignantly, "that is an assumption. If you cannot define your words, you have no right to use them."

"My dear fellow," replied Wright, half-sarcastically, "definitions of those higher things can only be understood by those sufficiently developed to comprehend them. Could I expound philosophy to a dog?"

This was too much. Accordingly, assuming an air of great seriousness, I replied: "Mr. Wright, the everlasting spirit which permeates the universe has made known to me at this very moment a new truth. That truth is that there are four substances in the universe -- matter, soul, spirit, and poojah."      

"Nonsense," cried Wright, "what do you mean by poojah? It's only a word."  

"Ah," I replied, "I cannot define it -- to you -- you have not sufficiently developed."

"But what is it at all?" he cried, forgetting himself.

"Can I expound philosophy to a dog?" I thundered. "No, sir. You will have to develop first. And so I again declare that there are four substances in the universe -- matter, soul, spirit, and poojah, and the greatest of these is poojah." In many subsequent metaphysical arguments I have found "poojah" exceedingly convenient.

About a Sense of Humour.

On another occasion an incident occurred which I am not likely to forget. Mr. Bayldon was aware of his own gifts, though in this he showed a certain childlike sympathy which made it almost attractive. Many of his friends, including myself, had denied him the gift of humour. This gave him a great deal of pain, and I have frequently heard him trying to prove by long process of reasoning that be possessed a wit of a very high quality -- a fact which almost demonstrated its utter absence.

"No gift of humour!" he would cry indignantly, "why I'm full of it. I frequently lie in bed o' nights laughing, hours on end."

"What at?" I once asked.

"Just at things in general," he replied. "I can see humour everywhere. There is humour in the wagging of the little tail of a dog."

One day, however, he happened to say something droll, and I observed: "Why, Bayldon, you've a sense of humour, after all."

He was beside himself with joy. "You have recognised the fact at last," he cried, jumping up and taking me by the hand. "Ah, I knew you would, I knew you would."

At this moment I had to go to a butcher near by and purchase a leg of mutton, which I had promised to take home on my bicycle. Bayldon followed, exclaiming all the way: "What kind of humour have I got -- like Swift, or like Sterne, or like Lamb?"

I entered the shop, secured the leg of mutton, got it well wrapped up in paper, and, attaching it to my bicycle, mounted and rode off. But Bayldon followed. I went fast. He followed suit. I went at considerable speed. He ran alongside. And all the while he was besieging me with questions as to the peculiar characteristics of the humour I had suddenly discovered that he possessed. In consequence of my endeavours to get away from the poet, and the poet's endeavours to detain me, the bicycle began to sway erratically from side to side of the street, and, before I was aware of it the mutton emerged from its wrappings and proceeded in all its nakedness to sway violently before the eyes of men and women. "I unconditionally withdraw the compliment." I cried, jumping from my bicycle, "if either of us had the faintest ghost of any sense of humour in our soul this spectacle would be the death of us." I then fled to a secluded spot and wept. 

First published in The Western Mail, 23 July 1910

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

Reprint: Australian Writers: To the Editor of the Herald

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Sir,--"The life austere" still too often waits upon the man of letters in Australia. Literature is the least remunerative of the arts, and very few of our authors can make enough by their pens to secure themselves against hard times. It is pleasant to see the well-named "Fellowship of Australian Writers" doing what it can to assist and to enlist help for a brother craftsman. Mr Arthur Bayldon is well known as a conscientious literary artist--a poet, critic, and writer of short stories--and those who know him personally can testify that he is a man of high ideals, fired with an almost defiant spirit of independence. He and his wife, brave comrades, have never asked for the help that they have sorely needed. Long wasting illness has worn the poet down and reduced his earning power. The "Fellowship" is arranging for him a benefit (under the patronage of his Excellency the Governor and Lady Game), and 'Steele Rudd,' with characteristic generosity, has placed at its disposal one of his cheerful comedies, "McClure and the Poor Parson." Laughter is worth more than usual at this season, and it is to be hoped that those who need cheering-up, as well as those who have at heart the interests of Australian literature, will see and seize their opportunity.

I am, etc.,

Basil Garstang

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November 1930

Note: Basil Garstang was a pseudonym of John Le Gay Brereton.

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

Reprint: A Chat with Mr. Fergus Hume

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The author of a book that has sold to the extent of 300,000 copies in England alone, not to mention an enormous sale in Australia and America, and that has been so much talked about as "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," may fairly claim a niche in the temple of, at least, ephemeral fame. Consequently, hearing of Mr. Fergus Hume's arrival in England from Australia, a representative of the Sunday Times waited upon him with the object of "drawing him out."

Mr. Fergus Hume, we are told, is a young man, in his twenty-fifth year, with a bright intelligent face, keen eyes, a dark moustache, and of middle height. His manner is quiet and unassuming, and his accent in speaking is somewhat provincial.

"I have been just twelve days in London," says Mr. Hume, " but have seen very little of it as yet, though I am just longing to see all the sights. But we -- that is, my friend Philip Beck and I -- have been working so hard to finish the adaptation of my new book, 'Madame Midas,' as we want to produce the play, for copyright purposes, before the publication of the book on July 7."

"That will be sharp work."  

" Ah, thank goodness, the play is now finished."

"'Madame Midas' is also a story of Australian life, is it not?"

"Yes; and chiefly concerned with the mining interests in the Colony. You see, Farjeon and Marcus Clarke, our two Australian novelists, have dealt with the Australia of a past day -- the rougher times of the Colony. But my desire is to picture the Australia of to-day, to destroy a common impression in England that the miners are still the lawless haphazard diggers of the past, and to convey a true knowledge of the mining industry, which is now carried on on the most scientific principles. To this end I spent some weeks at the Midas mine -- one of the best conducted and most promising in the Colony -- and studied the whole scientific system of gold mining, so as to make my story as realistic as possible. My heroine I have partly drawn from life, being a lady who has become famous in Australia on account of her gold-mining successes. She is an owner of many mines, and works them herself, and in the colony she is known as 'Madame Midas.' Of course, the incidents of the plot, though in the main based on fact, are highly-coloured and elaborated according to the requirements of the story. The first part is laid at the mines, and subsequently the story deals with the stock and share markets in Melbourne. There is an interesting case of poisoning, and the heroine's love story is quite romantic."

"Is the story dramatic?"

" I think so--very. And it is also, I hope and believe, a great advance in every way on 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.' That book I wrote when I was very ill and hard-up, not very encouraging conditions for an unknown author to write under; and I know there is consequently some very slippery writing in the book. It was six months before I could get any publisher to take it up, and then a Mr. Trischler, who was connected with a publishing firm in Melbourne, took a fancy to the story, and undertook to arrange for its publication. The Melbourne publishers expected only five hundred would be sold in six months, but Mr. Trischler believed in the book, and an edition of 5000 copies was accordingly printed. These were sold out in eleven days, and the type having been distributed it was two months before the second edition came out, and then they soon sold 30,000 copies. So successful was the book that Mr. Trischler formed ' The Hansom Cab Publishing Company,' and, publishing the book over here, they have made no end of money out of it."  

"I trust you have shared financially in this success?"  

"I can't complain; they gave me a good sum down for the copyright, though had I known that the success was going to be so immense, I would never have parted with the book. However, for 'Madame Midas' they have given me very handsome terms, and I need hardly say how anxious I am about its success. I should hate to be known as a 'one book man.' Consequently I have put my best into this work."  

"Was the 'Hansom Cab' your first literary work?"

"No. I had been dabbling in literature for some time, though intended for the law, and engaged in a lawyer's office. While living in New Zealand I wrote several stories for the newspapers, and one of these--a psychological romance--attracted some attention. Then I wrote two or three plays for Australian theatres, one of which, 'A Woman Scorned,' was produced by Miss Marie de Grey."

"Are you a native Australian?"

"No, but I have lived in the Colonies since I was two years old. My parentage is a mixture of Scotch and Irish. Till I was twenty-one I lived in New Zealand, where I was admitted to the Bar, but never practised as a barrister, and for the last three years Melbourne has been my home, and there I have spent my time between literature, the law, and the Stock Market."

"And now you are fairly launched on the career of a novelist?"

"And playwright. In that connection I have entered into a partnership with Mr. Philip Beck, the actor, who has been playing in Melbourne for the last two years, and who has just returned home with me. The play of 'Madame Midas' is our joint work."

First published in The Maitland Mercury, 18 August 1888

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

Reprint: Gaeity Theatre. "Mystery of a Hansom Cab"

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Another change in the programme was made on Saturday night. Several dramatised versions of Mr. Fergus Hume's sensational Australian novel have been witnessed before in Brisbane, but Mr. Taylor, in dealing with "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," as told by the novelist, has succeeded in investing the story with a new interest. The principal incidents of the plot are brought prominently into view; and enough is made of the side issues to impart to many of the scenes the amount of comedy necessary in plays of this description. The result is a thrilling, yet at times amusing, comedy-drama. Throughout four acts, comprising close upon a dozen scenes, the interest is well kept up, and when in the final scene, Madge learns the truth at last, Sam Gorby brings the villain Fitzgerald to justice, and all ends as the audience has all along hoped it would end, no one gives a sigh of relief that all is over. Of the representation it is only necessary to say that it was really a good one. The members of the company have played so long together that there are no hitches in a first night's performance. All the resources of the actor were brought into play by Mr. Charles Taylor, who was seen now as Sam Gorby, the cool calculating detective, then as the ludicrous new chum swell, and again in the guise of a Jew insurance agent. Miss Ella Carrington ably filled the rule of Madge Frettleby, a typical Australian girl, and with Mr. Taylor shared the honours of the evening. The other members of the company gave efficient support. The drama was suitably staged, and the tableau in the first act, showing the hansom, cab, the horse, the driver, the victim, and the murderer, was sufficiently realistic for all purposes. The "Mystery of a Hansom Cab" has been repeated throughout the week.

First published in The Queenslander, 2 April 1892

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

Reprint: Furnley Maurice. A Many-Sided Poet by Nettie Palmer

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Sometimes we are forcibly reminded that Australia is as big as Europe-without-Russia, or bigger. We remark that to send a letter from Brisbane to Melbourne is like writing from London to Madrid, or further. Then we notice that a book, which is quietly published in Melbourne, seems to Brisbane like something foreign, or, indeed, does not seem anything at all, since it is probably unknown. The poet who usually has chosen to be known as "Furnley Maurice," then, has published four sizable books of poems, but none of those books has made him known to Brisbane, and it is necessary to announce them as if they were new.

Four Volumes (1) "Unconditioned Songs."

The first book of Furnley Maurice's poems was not even published under his pen-name. In 1913 this book, "Unconditioned Songs," appeared anonymously, published by S J. Endacott, of Melbourne. The point of mentioning the publisher's name is that, for want of an other, it was taken to be the author's. I remember quite well seeing some striking lyrics from that book quoted in "T. P. Weekly" as the work of "S. J. Endacott Melbourne." So that was all the poet got for his anonymity! The book had considerable recognition, some reading it for the intenser of its little lyrics, and some for the sympathetic child songs. As for the title of the book, I take it to mean that the songs were -- what they were, fresh, free, not written to order. Here is a "Song":--  

   Give me rivers to cool my hands,
   Give me hills for stay!  
   I have a fear an' a little fear
   I hurt my love to-day.    

   There was no word, only those eyes
   Looked dim with smothered pain,
   A little thing an' a little thing,
   But it breaks my heart in twain!  

The noticeable quality in the whole book was freshness. It was as if you had found some opals in the rough, still in the matrix: it made the poems in many other books seem only like cut glass. Scattered through "Unconditioned Songs" there were, as I have mentioned, a few delightful songs about children, one giving a picture of a tiny boy in some sort of rocking-cart--

   Off to Carpentaria,
   Ireland, and Samaria,

and his tiny downfall. These verses were significant, for it was out of their big brothers that the second large book that Furnley Maurice published was made.

(2) "The Bay and Padie Book."

The whole title of this book was, "The Bay and Padie Book, Kiddie Verses."  The intention was modest; a collection of simple little songs and meditations arising naturally out of a happy suburban home, with its typical joys and sorrows. Two little boys are, I suppose, the heroes -- sometimes also the villains. The book has passed through at least four editions, and I am not sure that its rearrangement in the last of them has left a particularly jolly piece in the front. It was a sort of inspired catalogue of delights, each verse ending,

   Oh, what a lot of lots of things
   For little boys to do! 

Other pieces have more realisation of the occasional hardness of life: days in bed with a cold, baths when heads have to be washed and soap gets in a person's eyes, days when you're playing in the garden and nothing goes right, the wind blows toys away, pussy runs off, and

   Something comes and compradicks
   Everything I play ....  
   Daddy, God's been 'noying me
   All this day!

The book has two distinct kinds of poems in it -- those supposed to be said or thought by the children, which are printed in ordinary type and those that are grown-ups' meditation about the children, printed in italics. This distinction is important, but rather hard to sustain the two kinds overlap here and there. There was that one where the little boy came in quietly and told his mother that he had been out to the pool in the paddock, and "The sky was in the pool!"  You are conscious of the awe in the words: it is not a poem for children, for all its actuality. A "Kitchen Lullaby" makes a good song for a very tiny child to hear, and another isolated quatrain makes an evening song of its own:-  

   Half-past bunny time,  
      'Possums by the moon,
   Tea and bread and honey time,
      Sleep time soon.

(3) "Eyes of Vigilance."

If Furnley Maurice has been best known, in recent years, by the "Bay and Padie Book," his name, ten years ago, was associated with one remarkable poem, first published by itself in 1916, later included in his solid book, "Eyes of Vigilance," which appeared in 1920. That poem was called, "To God, from the Weary Nations," and was first published during the war. It was a piece of dignified musing, an ode with some superb lines, and a fine movement: a poem that met with heartfelt appreciation from many who felt the same, but were doomed to remain inarticulate. It uttered what we have all felt since, if not at the time: the pity of war!' It gives a realisation of

   The foe that lies in death magnificent, and cries, with mystic faith,
   All men are brave and bright and somewhere loved.

Republished in "Eyes of Vigilance," the war being over, the long poem was called, "To God from the Warring Nations."   Professor Walter Murdoch in his second version of an Oxford Anthology of Australasian Verse, printed, "To God, from the Warring Nations," in full, an extraordinary tribute of praise to a poem of such inconvenient length for an anthology.

The rest of "Eyes of Vigilance," which makes a large collection, circles, on the whole, round the theme of that longest poem. There is a large group of sonnets, most of them about the war, and its crashing into the life of man. Here is a sestet:-  

   These shall return; The mountains and the haze,
   The blue lobelias ledging all the lawns,
   The pixies, the lost roads, and the sun-blaze,
   These waters surge to-morrow to this shore --
   All these things shall return with other dawns
   But pity to the heart of man no more.

There was another sonnet, though, published in January, 1918. It was daringly called "Peace, 1918," and throbbed with a lovely radiance of hope. It took for an image a room, and a woman in it with kettles shining and polished, everything in order. In the last line she spoke, "The Prince may come to-night!" And that was written in the darkest of moments that did, after all, just come before the dawn.

(4) "Arrows of Longing."  

Of the fourth book it seems hardly fair to speak at all, and yet it contains much of Furnley Maurice's best work. The trouble is that it was published in an expensive and very limited edition, of which probably only a very few copies are left. Some few of the best poems in it have crept into an anthology or two, but what the public needs is a volume of Furnley Maurice collected from all four of his published books, and including the best of what he has written, even since "Arrows of Longing," that large and well-filled book, was published about 1921. If, in "Eyes of Vigilance," Furnley Maurice had been somewhat tendencious, propagandist, in "Arrows of Longing," he is propagandist for beauty only. Perhaps in the early book his theme was pity, and in the later one beauty. It is when he gives this beauty a local habitation that he names her best: -

   The drifts of forest light;
   Trees in a stormy night;
   Bush echoes, ocean's unresolving tone  
   Or groups of falling chords, melting to one;
   The softness of a kookaburra's crown
   The wind puts softly up and softly down;
   His eyes of love that inmost humanly speak
   Peering in softness o'er that murderous beak!

Perhaps it is for these intense glimpses of beauty in natural things which many have "seen without seeing" that we welcome Furnley Maurice most. It is only right to add that with all his poetical vision he has also a rare wit, and that his critical prose at its highest is very effective indeed. His influence on his fellow writers has all been in the direction of building up a body of literature that should be recognisable as our own,"racy of the soil." A small book of essays, "Romance", published a few years ago, expressed some of his literary opinions.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 24 December 1927

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

Reprint: Furnley Maurice. Passing of a Poet by R.G. Howarth

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Furnley Maurice, whose real name was Frank Wilmot, has just died in Melbourne. One has to live in Melbourne, perhaps, to understand fully the high literary reputation that is his there. But whatever else may be said, it must be acknowledged that for many years he had been a force in poetry and criticism -- not to speak of publishing, for at the time of his death he was manager of the Melbourne University Press.

If he is known at all widely here, it is for his fine poem "To God: from the Warring (originally "Weary") Nations," written in 1917; for his children's verse, "The Bay and Padie Book," and for his more recent "Melbourne Odes," one of which gained the prize in the Dyer Centenary   Competition.

Other noteworthy publications of his are "Romance," a collection of literary essays, and the two successive books of verse, "Arrows of Longing" and "The Gully," which are patriotic poems in the truest sense. He once co-edited and published a magazine called "The Microbe" -- clearly a Rossetti culture!

Anthologists, when they consider his work, seem mostly to seize on a piece about a dust-bin, which, if nothing else, will assure him the popular immortality of the back-lane romancer.

Differing Opinions

There are detailed and, I think, generous appreciations of his work in Green's "Outline" of Australian Literature, and Morris Miller's bibliography of the same. My own impression, stamped deeper by a number of readings at various times, is that while his unconventionality in thought and form is admirable, his total achievement considerable, he belongs to the   "Phoebus Car-out-of-control" school of poets. As Ben Jonson said about Shakespeare (or didn't he?), he should have put the brake on. In other words, he wrote too much too fast, and almost any one of his longer pieces would bear reshaping, rephrasing, and certainly condensation. This may more readily be believed when I mention that he commonly let himself go in free rhymed verse -- which could often well stop anywhere. His early poems, according to Morris Miller, were remarkable for "brevity of words." That may have been because he began writing under the influence of O'Dowd.

It is too soon, however, to attempt to estimate Furnley Maurice fully. Perhaps his best merit is that he is a poet who can be read by all. What poet could wish more? 

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 February 1942

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

Reprint: Louis Stone. His Forgotten Novels by Nettie Palmer

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Lately I have been re-reading Louis Stone's novel, "Jonah," first published in 1911. The chief impression it leaves is a secondary one, a feeling of sadness that such fine work should be ignored and forgotten. For it is ignored; people will be saying that they wished Australia had produced a novel about larrikin life in Sydney, a novel which would show our larrikin emerging from push life, and becoming a commercial magnate, a novel showing the contrast between sordid, slumming Sydney, and the exquisite movement and colour of the harbour; well, here is the novel they dreamt of, and they have not read it. I feel inclined to take them on a personally conducted tour through its subtly wrought chapters.

A "Written" Book.

"Jonah" is a book in which every page, as a novelist said to me lately, "feels written." What that means is, I think, that the words are not slammed down in a hit-or-miss fashion. The author has felt aware that he has only, let us say, about ninety thousand words to use, and that there must be no waste pages, no dead paragraphs, no words that are mere counters. Perhaps his best drawn side character is Mrs. Yabsley, the good humoured, selfless old charwoman who becomes Jonah's mother-in-law. The careful drawing of Mrs. Yabsley is a specimen of what I mean by "writing"; every word is faithful to its task, thus:

Mrs. Yabsley came to the door . . . and surveyed Cardigan-street with a loving eve. She had lived there since her marriage 20 years ago, and to her it was the pick of Sydney, the centre of the habitable globe. She gave her opinion to every new-comer in her tremendous voice, that broke on their unaccustomed ear like thunder:

"I've lived 'ere ever since I was a young married woman, an' I know wot I'm talkin' about. My 'usband used ter take me ter the play before we was married, but I never see any play equal ter wot 'appens in this street, if yer only keeps yer eyes open. I see people as wears spectacles readin' books. I don't wonder. If their eyesight was good, they'd be able ter see fer themselvs instead of readin' about it in a book. I can't read myself, bein' no scholar, but I can see that books an' plays is fer them as ain't got no eyes in their 'eads."

The matter does not end there with Mr. Yabsley's dogmatic statement. The author makes you feel that you really do see that street through Mrs. Yabsley's lively, interested eyes. This Cardigan-street is a Sydney variant, perhaps, of the street known as "Little Lon" in Melbourne, celebrated variously by Louis Esson and C. J. Dennis. It is the street of pushes, stray hawkers, family rows ex- pressed out of doors, feuds, struggles, love making, bargaining; yes, it does give you a contempt for people in spectacles staring at a book! Then you suddenly remember that this is all being brought before your mind through the pages of a book, a book extraordinarily weil written. You realise again that the art of letters is a consider- able one.

Jonah Himself.

In very many novels, especially those in a bizarre setting, the hero is negligible, a mere figure-head, as we say, or a tailor's dummy. Not so with "Jonah," whose real name, used in commercial circumstances as time went on, was Joseph Jones. The reader finds no difficulty in believing that Jonah really was a powerful character, powerful in physique and in personality. His physical deformity accompanies our thoughts of him: we remember his tragic tramp and his over-long arms, remember them especially when Jonah is torn between two sets of motives. You feel he is a spirit in prison: yon can even believe in his passion and talent for music, although his only instrument is the mouth organ he won in a shilling raffle. It is important to emphasise this power of Louis Stone's to portray an artistic temperament: very few novelists can make you believe for a moment in the "artists" they describe. Can't we all remember novels in which we are assured that the hero was a wonderful painter, the despair of all rivals alive or dead, and how we felt that nothing less than some "habeas corpus" of his canvases would make us believe for a moment that this dull person ever knew how to mix paint at all? As for the musician in an ordinary novel, with his power of binding his audience in a spell, whatever he played, we usually want to tell him to go and break stones. Jonah does not come before us as a skilled musician, not a prodigy of any sort; but we do believe that he cared for music, and that it was real to him. Parallel to this, we believe in his bewildered physical power and his business shrewdness. Jonah's rise in life through skilled use of advertisement and publicity at a time when such things had not been exploited as they are to-day makes very interesting reading, like a development of some chapters in the early part of H. G. Wells' "The World of William Clissold." Jonah began as assistant to an old-fashioned cobbler, but felt that he was getting no further on. Borrowing a little money, he started an opposition business just across the road. At first he got no custom, his former boss was known, and he was not. Soon, though, hearing his wife say how cheap some baby's bonnet was at four and   eleven, he asked if it would really have been dearer at five shillings:-

"Why don't yer say five bob, an' be done with it?" said Jonah.

"But it ain't five bob; it's only four and eleven," insisted Ada, annoyed at his stupidity.

"An' I suppose it'd be dear at five bob?" sneered Jonah.

"Any fool could tell yez that," snapped Ada.

This discussion bore fruit in Jonah's cynically practical business head. He advertised flamboyantly that he would mend men's shoes for 2/11, and women's for 1/11, while his former chief's old dingy sign, from which "the paint was peeling, still said: "Gent's, 3/6; Ladies. 2/6." In addition, Jonah announced a "While You Wait" service, and bribed a friend to come in and read a newspaper, and spectacularly wait. The miracle was done! In a while Jonah had a special trade sign, and a chain of shops, through Sydney suburbs. It is only after this that he draws breath and emerges, for one of two brief episodes, on the Harbour; you then realise that you have been in Sydney all this time, seeing the tapestry from the wrong side -- the seamy side.

Jonah's Mates.  

Yet that wrong side, was not all sordid. Jonah's friend of his early push days, known as Chook, was a youth with a pretty wit, and his idyllic little love affair holds very genuine sweetness to the very close of the book. ' And humour -- humour of the heavy, farcical kind in his foolish, selfish, step-mother-in-law; humour of delicate moments in his relations with his sweetheart, Pinkie, with her pale face and hair the colour of a new penny. Chapter by chapter, the episodes of their developing life are charming, and also solid. At the end of the book, though, comes the question of why these episodes do seem to float away from the mind. In some books, the framework is so firm and well balanced that at the close you see every episode even more clearly than while you were reading it. In others, the close means a breaking up. "Jonah" is not quite "fitly framed together"; that is its weakness, in spite of all its other strength. Every chapter is rather too much like a separate still-life study, though not "still" within the boundaries of the separate, lively chapter! The story does not quite carry all the characters along in its sweep: when Jonah takes up his new commercial existence, Chook is never mentioned again except in his wholly separate environment. You never hear Chook mentioning Jonah's rise in life, or comparing it with his own struggles as a green- grocer. You never hear Jonah wishing he had lived on with Chook. They are separated, watertight, further from each other than Cardigan-street was from the Habour. Still, Chook and Pinkie and the rest remain as excellent sketches. The whole book is a sketch-book of types very difficult to capture, and we feel they have been saved for us between the covers of "Jonah." It is a book that certainly ought to be republished and well distributed.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 7 January 1928

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

Reprint: Obituary. Mr Louis Stone

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Mr. Louis Stone, novelist, who died at his home at Randwick on Monday, at the age of 63 years, was the author of "Jonah," a story which dealt with the life of the larrikin element of Sydney of about 30 years ago. It was first published in London in 1911, and re-published in 1933. Mr. Stone was also the author of "Betty Wayside," which was published in London in 1914. He retired from the Education Department a few years ago, for health reasons. He had been first assistant at the Coogee Public School and a teacher at the Sydney Boys' High School. Mr. Stone came to Australia with his parents when 12 years of age, from Leicester, England, where he was born. After some years in Brisbane, he came to Sydney in 1885. He entered the Education Department. Mr. Stone was a fine musician. His wife, formerly Miss Abbie Allen, was a pianist and a member of a prominent musical family. Mrs. Stone survives him.

The funeral took place yesterday to the Randwick Cemetery after a service at the home conducted by the Rev. A Morris who also officiated at the graveside.

The chief mourners were Mrs Stone (widow), Messrs. A. T. Allen, F. W. Allen, S. Allen, Wilfred Allen and Roy Allen (brothers-in-law), and Miss  Dora Allen (sister-in-law)/ Others present included  Messrs. H. W. Moffitt, T. A. Lawler, J. Wolinski, W. H. Woodward, Scarlett, Mr. and Mrs. William Moore, Messrs. Roderic Quinn, Mick Paul, Green, Davies, C. Kinsela, A. Woolland, W. Lawson, H. and H. W. Webb, Wallace, P. Waterman, Miss Jean Wallace, Mr. and Mrs. H. Julius, Messrs. L. Cutler, W. Barnes, Thornton, Oates, Smedley, Bosward, Mason, Proud, J. Fitzgerald, Mesdames Mooney, N. Lindsay, Green, Flowers, Gibb, Messrs. Singleton, Homer, Martin, C. Morrisby, Misses H. Holloway, Russell, McKern, E. Dwyer, Soutar, Garrett, B. and E. Bubb, Warren, Bertie, and Sabine, Dr. Mackaness, Mesdames Fossell, Buettel, Craig, and Chapman, Messrs. G. L. Dwyer, O. and W. Young, W. S. Russell, and Brown.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 September 1935

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

   When I am gone, I hope it may be said
   His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

             -- Hilaire Belloc.


Many years ago now Henry Kendall, that lost child of a mellower civilization, bewailed the hardships which befall "a man of letters here." There is no New Grub street in Australia, but the reporters' room of a newspaper, and the ledger of a city firm here and there might tell of inkier servitudes than those of Gissing's sombre heroes in the murk of London's literary underworld. "Genius," says one critic finely, "though it may often desire money and fame, is never silenced by the lack of either," and there is always a comfortable tradition that poets will be poets in spite of us. What is there to hinder a man dashing off a three volume novel on his Saturday afternoons or late nights at the office? Tolstoy, who had an austere belief in the sweat of the brow, would even have held that an author was the better for it. Australian writers, however, have not flourished under these conditions; and it is even beginning to be suspected that leisure, or, in other words, the assurance of an income, is a favourable condition for good literary work. Few men, in setting out to write a masterpiece, can quite free themselves from the ignoble anxiety of how they and their dependants are to live in the meantime. In Australia the settled income is still almost exclusively associated with families newly enriched by commerce, which circles; however valuable their contributions to trade, have not often displayed leanings to literature. The would-be man of letters, bereft both of the princely patron of old and the unearned increment which is his substitute in older civilizations, relies for his leisure on democracy's interest and appreciation. Has democracy any interest and appreciation for Australian literature?

Views from a Bookshop.

Adelaide booksellers, deep in preparation for Australian Authors' Week, expressed varying opinions on the question. Mr. F. W. Preece, President of the Associated Booksellers of Australia and New Zealand, was, unfortunately, too ill to be interviewed; but Mr. E. H. Lowe, secretary of the Adelaide Association, who is also the manager of the Methodist Book Depot, suggested that if Australians did not appreciate Australian books after Authors' Week it would not be the book sellers' fault. He explained that in Melbourne the Associated Booksellers were working through press, platform, and wireless, and had given prizes for a "slogan." The competition had resulted in such bright ideas as 'Buy books by Australian writers now and by and by,' and 'Australian writers write the right books; buy one by one.' Adelaide booksellers clung to the Adelaide tradition that dignity and dulness were not synonymous, and preferred a quieter poster. They were all supporting Authors' Week in proportion to their smaller numbers, and relied on a joint advertisement and window displays of nothing but Australian books to capture the bookbuyers' interest.

As manager of the Methodist Book   Depot, Mr. Lowe could not express an opinion on the general attitude to Australian books. He could only indicate the attitude of Methodists, which was to show interest in books by ministers' daughters, but restricted enthusiasm in other directions. "Take," he said, "this fairy book by Pixie O. Harris. It is a delightful thing, but we can't sell it. Our people do not care for fairy tales. We can sell any number of Bible stories and copies of "Pilgrim's Progress," but fairy tales sent out for children's prizes are almost invariably returned. In fact, we don't send them now. The novels of Miss Dorothy Langsford have a great sale among our people."

Speaking, not as the manager of the Methodist Book Deport, but as a bookseller of wider experience, Mr. Lowe held that there was a distinct prejudice against books by Australian writers. "Unless there is some strong personal interest, or interest in the historical events described, Australian readers don't want them."

At Tyrrell's.

Mr. S.J. Stutley, happily at home in the bookish and delightful atmosphere of Tyrrell's, Limited, responded in a manner befitting the surroundings, which always seem to suggest that even in this hasty and commercial age there is still room and leisure for talk on general ideas. "I suppose," he said candidly, "that you know as well as I do what the public's attitude has been to Australian literature, It has been apathetic. It is only just lately, since the war in fact, that bookbuyers have realized that Australians can write. Now Angus & Robertson have printed at least half a dozen novels, which have been as well received as English novels of the same type, and as well read as if they had been published in England with all the advantages of the advertising of well-organized publishers. In England, too, the tide has turned. At least two leading firms of publishers, Hodder & Stoughton and Hutchinson's, have representatives in Australia, keeping a lookout for Australian novels.  

"A good example of changed, conditions is the fate of Katherine Susannah Pritchard's "Working Bullocks." That is a really fine thing, outstanding among Australian publications. Her "Pioneers" met with very meagre success. This is a much more mature work, showing real   power, and it has been readily recognised both in Australia and England. It is a novel of the dairy districts, and very realistically written. Jonathan Cape, who brought out the English edition, wrote asking her to tone down the expressions used in some of the dialogue, but she cabled, in effect, "What I have written, I have written," and they thought so highly of the work, that they accepted her ruling. We have just cabled to England for more copies-- a thing most rare with an Australian novel-- and have received a reply that more are being printed so that apart from its Australian success it has made an impression in England." Mr. Stutley touched on Australian publishing, and expressed the opinion that at present it was best for Australian writers to publish in Australia, with the prospect of an English edition if their venture proved successful. It was the hardest test. The Platypus series of cheap reprints were going to make a difference, he thought, to the Australian prospects.

Fairy Books and Others.

Mr. J. Morley Bath, manager of Rigby's, Limited, is one of the most enthusiastic workers for Australian Authors' Week. He believes intensely in encouraging Australian writers, and shows his belief very practically by publishing their books. The Australian text books published by Rigby's are well known, and include works by A. Grenfell Price. Gordon L. Wood. M.A., and Cyril M. Ward, M.A. Their publications, however, are often in lighter vein, and Mr. Bath, rejoices in the distinction of being Pixie O. Harris's "Fairy Publishers," and appearing in her marginal illustrations complete with bowler hat. umbrella and wings. He also published Maud Renner Liston's "Cinderella's   Party"' Mr. Bath has been most anxious that Adelaide should do its part in Australian Authors' Week, and has worked hard in the cause.

Missing Colour.

Mr. B. B. Beck, of Cole's Book Arcade, has seen many changes in the public taste for books, and is now slow to predict. He thinks, that the readers he is most in touch with care little for Australian, or even for English books, compared with the American novel.    

"There," he said, "they find picturesque scenery, the romantic events of two wars, the glamour of Red Indian life, and adventures among primitive conditions. We have as yet no distinctly Australian colour. Most of the novels written here might be written about any part of the continent. Mr. Gask, the dentist, writes detective stories, which are translated into three or four languages, but they are translated because they are detective stories, not because they are Australian. Mrs. Doudy's "Magic of Dawn" sold because of the interest in historical events connected with it. We have as yet no distinctly Australian architecture, no Australian costume even. Australian readers will read more Australian books when they have the interest of strong local colour."  

From all of which the aspiring Australian author may or may not, draw comfort.  

First published in The Register, 10 September 1927

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

Reprint: Nobel Prize Suggested for WA Novelist

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West Australian novelist Katherine Susannah Prichard, of Greenmount, has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature.

Confirming this today, author John K. Ewers said that the WA section of the Fellowship of the Australian Writers was invited by the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy to nominate a candidate.

English professor Alan Edwards of the University of Western Australia readily consented to support the nomination which was sent to Sweden a fortnight ago.

Professor Edwards said that he could think of no Australian writer who better deserved the honour than Katherine Susannah Prichard.

"A very large meeting of the fellowship unanimously endorsed this opinion," said Mr. Ewers.

It is believed that the invitation to the WA Fellowship came as a result of an article by Mr. Ewers in a Melbourne weekly paper last December titled.- "Why not a Nobel Prize for Australian Writers?"

* Katherine Susannah Prichard, widow of WA Victoria Cross winner Hugo Throssell, has become a world figure in literature. Some of her work has been translated into French, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Afrikaans. Four of her novels have been published in America. She won a £1000 competition in London in 1915 with The Pioneers. Working Bullocks was published in 1926. In 1928 she shared first prize in a Bulletin competition with Coonardoo.

First published in The Daily News, 15 March 1950

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

Reprint: Who Knows the Mind of a Skag?

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Sydney's bookstalls, already bursting at the sides with violence, laughter and sex, are now carrying no fewer than 25 kinds of magazine grouped under the general description of "science fiction". A year ago there were only six, and two years ago only three.

This phenomenon, among others, is being discussed by upwards of 200 men and women from many parts of Australia at the third annual Science Fiction Convention, which was officially opened yesterday in Sydney.

Most of the magazines now on sale look as though they have arrived from Outer Space. In fact they have come from the United States, by way of Britain.

Science fiction, broadly, is a story that begins something like this:

"Two hours before the vessel plunged into minus point, building up for a hundred and fifty   parsec jump through hyperspace, Captain Jack Warren was so high on narcol he couldn't read his own manifest . . . it was too late. The skags had taken over control of the ship."

Around the world there are now about 50 such magazines in 15 languages, and about 40 of them originate in the United States.

However, the deluge into Australia does not mean that the number of Australian followers has increased so suddenly.  

There is simply a bigger variety of the magazines available here. The dollar restrictions since 1940 have blocked American publications, but now they are being reprinted in Britain.

An executive of a large wholesale magazine distributing firm in Sydney told "The Sun-Herald":

"We're testing the market. In this State the Westerns are dropping back a bit in sales and science fiction is taking their place in popularity, but not yet spectacularly.

The Professors Can Relax

"A few of the science fiction magazines are really just crude Westerns dressed up in space-suits and swimming costumes. But many are far from moronic -- even some with the sexiest or most gruesome covers.

"Those covers are only a come-on. The writers, it seems, won't pander. Trouble is," he added regretfully, "the readers som times have to be pretty bright to understand them.

"In America the publishers have had to issue a couple of books which are virtually popular science dictionaries, so that new s.f. fans can know what they're reading about."

Some of the Australian readers hardly ever need a glossary, for quite a few are honours graduates in physics, mathematics and engineering.

Professors used to relax with a crime story. Now the hand gropes on the bed-side table for "Astounding Science Fiction," "Galaxy," or "If". After all, this new reading is itself detective fiction of a sort.

An American high priest of the cult declares that it can render a great public service by "pointing out the probable results of present trends in science, and then letting the reader decide whether that's what he wants."

But the British novelist J. B. Priestley, after confessing recently that he had read "a good deal" of American science fiction, went on to denounce a current trend in the stories.

"Having ruined this planet," he wrote bitterly, "we take destruction to other planets. It is a move undertaken in secret despair, in the wrong direction . . .

'The rocket ships no longer represent man's triumphant progress. They merely show him hurrying at ever-increasing speeds away from his true life as a spiritual being."

A reasonable-voiced supporter of science fiction, Mr. Vol Molesworth, director of the Futurian Society of Sydney, makes this reply:

"The idea of embodying scientific ideas in fictional form fills an urgent educative need. It's not new. It started with the Socratic Dialogues."

Purists apparently date the birth of modern science fiction at about 1926. Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, to their mind, were not sufficiently scientific in their predictions.

They declare that fantasy is strictly different from science fiction, and even when they admit that the two are usually merged in the magazines they add that science has had a habit of overtaking intelligently conceived fantasies.

They Exchange Fanzines

In Sydney a small group of the more enthusiastic readers formed the Futurian Society on the eve of the World War I. To borrow one another's magazines and books and hold their abstruse discussions, these addicts met on Thursday nights in a coffee shop.

Last year they made their present clubrooms in an old Darlinghurst factory, visited fairly regularly by about 100 enthusiasts.

Similar groups exist in the other capitals, and there are lesser groups about the Sydney suburbs. Between some rival groups there is even admittedly a certain amount of bad feeling.

This week-end, in Federation Hall, Philip Street, the Science Fiction Convention is fascinatedly tracing out paths man's future may take.

A B.Sc. and two B.A.'s have given addresses in a symposium on The World of To-morrow. ("If you want to see the future, look at yesterday and to-day", was a sober keynote); and to- night there will be a "variety" session.

The membership of the organised science fiction groups in Australia, the convention visitors learned, is still small but it's growing. And there is no doubt about the members' keeness.

At least 15 of the groups circulate their own papers, some roneoed and some printed, containing reviews, comment and amateur science fiction.

"Fanzines" (fan magazines), these are called, as distinct from prozines, or professional magazines.

Yes, they adore new words, these science-minded students of strange goings-on in strange worlds along the time-space continuum -- and not all the words, certainly, are strictly scientific.

Back, for example, to the story of Captain Jack Warren's adventures, which ends:

"When last heard from, K'Gol and his skag companions had settled down to conferring with terrestrial scientists, making and discarding countless plans to revive the Rigel culture, and drinking narcol . . .

"Who knows the mind of a skag?"

First published in The Sun-Herald (Sydney), 18 April 1954

[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]
For years I have heard people grumbling, asking vaguely for some one to write books about the Australian pioneering that was not just a struggle with drought in the Never Never. They have asked why some of the dignified, complex lives of the prouder kind of pioneer were not put on record. They have asked for an account of settlement in some of the mountainous coastal districts. To this the only answer was that every writer must write as it is given to him to do. Paul Wenz, the Frenchman, describes an Australian that is bare by, with, and for sheep. Lawson describes life on the track with swagmen and shearers of the 'nineties or so. And now, at last, before it is too late, comes a chronicler giving us the persons and places that have so often been desired. The book is "Up the Country," its author, signing himself "Brent of Bin Bin." The book is something between a novel and reminiscences, rather formless and with an overcrowded canvas; and life bubbles up through it at every part. The region is somewhere in the S.E. of New South Wales, Snowy River country, the author loving every curve of it.

"Up the Country."

The modest title of the book is confirmed by the preface, where the author says that "if only half a dozen genuine old pioneers commend the verisimilitude of their story as here writ down I shall be rewarded extravagantly in excess of my desserts." Brent of Bin Bin surely has his reward. Old pioneers, both in his own lovely district, "where the winds and the streams are made," and in all places like it by aspect and history, will surely say he has achieved "verisimilitude." More than that, he has achieved something like ecstasy, a communicable delight in fine memories.

The book could be called, like some old-fashioned romances, by the names of its chief families. "The Pooles and the Mazeres, or Laughter and Tears" (such books always had a sub-title). But, no, I am wrong in suggesting that "Up the Country" is an old-fashioned book, with its characters seen as if through the wrong end of a tele- scope. Its characters may wear crinolines, but their hearts and speech are young, contemporary. Here is some of their talk:

"You've mourned long enough for poor Emily now. You oughtn't to waste your life any longer. It's a pity for you to be an old bachelor when you see the kind of husbands many women have to put up with."

"That's all very fine, but who'd I marry? I can't go mashing after one of those little squeaking girls that I see about."

That very modern horror of flappers! The second speaker was the hero of the book, Bert Poole. A glorious figure of a bushman, from boyhood to middle age, capable, alert in all his senses, the mainstay of the country-side, Bert Poole was adored by every one of the girls (little squeaking ones and older), and imitated by all the men. If Brent of Bin Bin had done nothing but render the personality of Bert Poole, and make it credible, his book would have been worth writing. But such a man is incomplete without his environment, and that is given, too, his environment, human and physical.

Bush Ecology.  

There is a rather new branch of science called "ecology." It must have existed long years ago without being defined: it was the basis of every bushman's power. An English scientist described ecology recently in this way:

An ecologlst is a field-naturalist, who concentrates attention on the relations between one species and another, on their reactions to their environment, on their numbers, birth rates, death rates, and movements. He has to know a little of everything. When an ecologlst says, "There goes a badger," he should include in his thoughts some definite idea of the animal's place in the community to which it belongs, just as if he had said, "There goes the vicar!"

So much for ecology in general. Now let us see what the ecology of Bert Poole and his friends amounted to:  

Every nook of Eagle Hawk Gullies was familiar to them, it having been their playground ever since they bestrode a horse. They were not to be deceived by any beast or bird that ran, flew, swam, crawled, or burrowed in its environs. Brands were a superfluous means of identification: one glance at a cow or colt and they could make an affidavit as to its dam or sire on points.

Or again, of Bert himself:

He could glance at a forest giant and tell which way it would fall to his axe, and how many slabs it would yield to fashion his habitation. ... He could canter over a stretch of country and estimate how many acres it contained, and how many beasts it would graze. . . . There wasn't a beast from the Upper Murray to the Murrumbidgee that he didn't know by the cut of its jib, and no bird could call to its mate, nor outline its wing on the sky at dusk or dawn, without his reading it like the alphabet.

Not an ecology quite satisfying to the pure scientist, perhaps, but something much nearer to it than that of the average specialist, for the bushman had to "know a little of everything"; often he knew a great deal.

A Book of Adventures.

Being a chronicle of two families and their more significant neighbours, the book's high lights shine on those events that would be most inevitable to whole clans. It opens on the waters of the Great Flood, when brave, charming Mrs. Mazere insisted on crossing the river to help a sick woman. Bert Poole and a young mate rowed her over; strong men stood on the banks imploring her not to take such a risk. She won through quietly, and her consistent courage has been part of the district legends ever since. Another high light shone on an attack by bushrangers, in which Bert Poole, at first misunderstood, then glorified, came out very strong indeed. Then there was the tragedy of lovely Emily Mazere, drowned in her golden youth, a blow for the whole district. These events bind the district-life together, but the background is even more strongly drawn. There is the account of the rival clergymen when they first came to the district. Kind Mrs. Brennan was ill when the priest was to come, so Mrs Mazere, an Anglican, threw open the Mazere homestead of Three Rivers, and every one came to the service. Mrs. Brennan sobbed with joy, saying to her husband:

"There niver was nor could be such a woman agin as my dear Rachel Mazere. Now, ye listen to me, Timmy bhoy, whin next her heretic bishop comes to the district he spinds a noight in all honour at Brennan's Gap..."

She had to wait years, but it is part of the history of Bool Bool that the bishop was nearly smothered in the Brennan's goose-down bed, the only one of its succulent floculent proportions up the country. Thereafter it became customary for the chief of the Church of England when he came to spend a night in great state at Brennan's Gap, and for his colleagues to return the courtesy at Three Rivers.

The Homesteads.

"Up the Country" is a book of homesteads, huge, growing places with as many inhabitants, year in year out, as one of the country houses in Tolstoy's books. But there were no peasants:-

When war, gold rushes, or over-speculation affected the price of stock or wool, the squatters would be flush of money, or strapped for it, according to the swing of the pendulum. But they always had plenty of blood-horses to ride, prime beef to eat, fruit, eggs, cheese, butter, and vegetables, and were able to do their own work if put to it, whether building a new habit or habitation.

It seems necessary to quote at some length like this to show the racy idiom that pervades the book, alternating, unfortunately, with some heavy journalese now and then. "Flush of money or strapped for it" -- that runs very well; such phrases have been lived with.

Finally, it may be mentioned that, as "Bool Bool" is an old settlement in the Mother State, its frontier district is Queensland, whose gold rush takes in its wake many undesirables. So that was Queensland's function then! She has outlived it.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 2 March 1929

Note: it was not until the 1950s that the author of this, and subsequent novels, was identified as none other than Miles Franklin.

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

Reprint: Book Review. Miss Zora Cross

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When Mr. Roy Bridges startled "The Times" into reviewing his "Vale of Tyre" at great length, Australian reviewers took heart of grace, realising that a notable novel, written in Australia and published in London was a possibility. When, more recently, Mr. Dale Collins published the most enthralling story of adventure at sea since "Treasure Island," it became possible to claim a great novelist for Australia. Ever since, one picks up a novel by an Australian author with a sense of pleasurable anticipation which is quite illogical and quite often unjustified. In a population of less than six millions, carrying, perhaps, a larger proportion suffering from cacoethes scribendi than is usual in older countries, it is absurd to expect a very large number or a very high percentage of literary successes. We have, considering population, an amazing number of better than average versifiers and minor poets; we have two or three really good novelists. That is a literary record of which a young and sparsely populated country may well be proud. Yet a reviewer may perhaps be forgiven for deploring the publication of second and third rate novels by Australians, as tending to lower a standard set proudly high by Australia's literary pioneers.

Perilously close to this category of second-rate Australian novels falls unhappily, the latest effort of Miss Zora Cross. With every desire to be sympathetic and encouraging toward an author who has written much good and almost good verse, it is impossible to write enthusiastically of this novel, "The Lute Girl of Rainyvale." Its central theme is Art (with a large capital), yet one of the characters is made to say of an early Lindsay drawing "Has anyone in Australia such an art treasure? Has anyone in this world? I like to think not." London, which recently saw and passed judgment upon a representative Lindsay collection, is likely to smile indulgently at such naive hero-worship as that. Furthermore, London (assuming that London reads "The Lute Girl of Rainyvale") will draw from these pages a strange picture of Australia as a whole and Queensland in particular. Many of the characters are Chinese; educated Chinese, who are made to fit with an appearance of complete naturalness into an Australian background. A stranger would be likely to receive the impression that wealthy Chinese of collecting habits and sauve manners were a normal feature of the Australian landscape. Throughout Miss Cross shows a knowledge of many highly interesting chapters of Chinese mythology, and for this reason alone many readers will find a curious charm in the book.

"The Lute Girl of Rainyvale," by Zora Cross. Hutchinson's, London. 7s. 6d. From Albert's, Ltd.

First published in The Western Mail, 6 August 1925

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

Reprint: Catherine Spence: Pioneer Journalist

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One of the finest pioneers Australia ever had was a woman journalist, Catherine Spence, yet she lived and did her work one hundred years ago, when women journalists were regarded with suspicion and as a race to be discouraged.

To be sure, for 30 years Catherine Spence used her brother's name to sign her articles, but she had a message, and she was determined to deliver it without being side-tracked by any irrelevant nonsense about what sex one ought to belong to.

Her message was a strange one for a woman of that day; she believed passionately in democracy, and she believed even more passionately that democracy could not exist without proportional representation, or "effective voting," as she preferred to call it.

It was to the campaign for proportional or preferential voting, which nowadays we take so much for granted, that she devoted the whole of her long life, sparing neither time, energy, money, nor health to bring it about.

Catherine Helen Spence is identified with Australia as a whole by the cause to which she dedicated her life; she is identified with South Australia and the city of Adelaide in many ways besides.

In a sense, she grew up with South Australia, for the colony was only three years old when she arrived there with her family in 1839 at the age of 14.

She was born at Melrose, on the Tweed, in Scotland, in the romantic neighborhood of Abbotsford and Sir Walter Scott. One of her earliest memories was of the funeral procession of the great novelist winding its way to Dryburgh Abbey, where so many of her own family were buried.

"I account myself well born," she says in a memorable sentence, "for my father and mother loved each other. I account myself well descended, going back for many generations on both sides of intelligent and respectable people. I think I was well brought up, for my father and mother were of one mind regarding the care of the family."

A better description of gentle birth could hardly be devised.

Her father was David Spence, a lawyer, and her mother, Helen Brodie, daughter of one of the most enterprising farmers in Britain.

Young Catherine, who was fifth among eight children, had a happy childhood, and for those days an exceedingly good education.

Languages were well taught, and a love and a discriminating taste for good books were stimulated and encouraged along with the more "womanly" pursuit of fine needlework.

Catherine, indeed, was set fair for an academic career, with Edinburgh as her goal, when her gentle, incurably trusting father was ruined by wheat speculations. With recovery impossible, David Spence, fortified by a gift of £500 from his wife's people, took his family to Adelaide.  

Their early years in this hard, raw, new colony were extremely difficult, and David Spence lived only six years longer.

For some months after they landed, the family lived in a tent on Brownhill Creek, and sold milk from their small herd of cows.

During this period they lived chiefly on rice -- it was the only cheap food, and Spence bought a ton of it. Later he got the job of Town Clerk of Adelaide at £150 a year, but lost it again with thc break-up of the municipality.

In 1843, to help the family finances, Catherine went out as a governess at sixpence an hour, and the knowledge that she had 5/- a week to put into the common fund restored her sense of independence and dissipated her shyness.

Meanwhile, she was writing for the Press, a modest beginning with stray verses and an occasional letter to the "South Australian," anonymous, of course.

Later she ran a small school, with the help of her mother and sisters, but in 1850, when she was 25, she gave up teaching and turned to novel-writing.

In all she wrote seven novels, and though fiction was never more than a by-product of her intensely busy existence, her writing is competent and professional, and she has her own distinct and not unimportant place in the development of Australian literature.

Her first two books, "Clara Morison" and "Tender and True," were published in England, and though well reviewed netted their author only £50 between them. The third, "Mr. Hogarth's Will," into which she wove her ideas about voting, yielded £85, but this included serial rights in the Melbourne "Telegraph."

Her best novel, and her last, "Handfasted," was never published at all; it was submitted for a prize of £100 offered by the "Sydney Mail," but the judge "feared it was calculated to loosen the marriage tie -- it was too socialistic, and consequently dangerous!"

In 1859 Catherine received the inspiration for what was to be her life's work.

The English philosopher John Stuart Mill had written a pamphlet advocating Thomas Hare's scheme for proportional voting, and, fired with enthusiasm after reading it, Catherine lost no time in getting her own views on the subject into print.

At that time she was Adelaide correspondent for the Melbourne "Argus" (under her brother's name), but the "Argus" showed no enthusiasm for their employee's new ideas; it recognised them as ingenious, but said it was definitely committed to block voting and that was that.

Two years later, when telegraphed news services made Catherine's work as correspondent unnecessary, she began to write a series of letters to the Adelaide "Register" on her pet theme, signed with her initials.

Her brother John encouraged her to write a pamphlet, and got it printed under the title of "A Plea for Pure Democracy." It was described by John Stuart Mill, Thomas Hare, and other authorities as the best argument from the popular side that had been presented.

Through the kindness of friends, Catherine was enabled to visit England and Scotland in 1865. During her visit she met Thomas Hare himself, and Rowland Hill, then better known as a post-office reformer than as a pioneer of effective voting, and the great Mill also, as well as George Eliot and many less dazzling celebrities.

She and Mill enjoyed each other's society very much, but her meeting with George Eliot was something of a fiasco, and Catherine gives an amusing account of it in her autobiography. George Eliot apologised handsomely years later for her brusqueness, which was caused by ill-health, and Catherine never ceased to regard her, together with Jane Austen, as one of her favorite English novelists.

By this time, of course, Catherine Spence was a well-known public figure, and her services were in demand in Adelaide for all sorts of reform projects.

She was a pioneer in the fight to provide destitute children with normal home lives instead of allowing them to be herded together in institutions; and for 14 years she worked hard to help make the foster-parents scheme under the Boarding-Out Society the success it undoubtedly became.

The movement spread to other States and to New Zealand, while a little book Catherine wrote on the subject, "State Children in Australia," reached the desk of the Under-secretary of State in the British Government and greatly influenced the preparation of the Children's Bill that came before the House of Commons in 1908.

Public speaking was another activity for women pioneered by Catherine Spence. She began in a modest way with travel and literary talks, but later on branched out into preaching and political speaking. She had abandoned the gloomy Calvinism of her forefathers, with its doctrine of predestination, and had joined the Unitarian Church, whose pulpits were open to women ministers.

Catherine was frequently in demand as a preacher, not only in Adelaide, but in Melbourne and Sydney, and later in America.

An address given at the Unitarian Church in Sydney on the subject of International Peace gave her the opportunity to express her disapproval of the South African War, and she was described (by the Sydney "Bulletin") as "the gallant little old lady who has more moral courage in her little finger than all the Sydney ministers have in their combined anatomies."

As one might imagine, Catherine had little time in her life for romance; she had two offers of marriage in her whole life, both of which she declined. She said in later years that though she had often envied her friends the love of their children, she had never envied any of them their husbands!

Books, pamphlets, and articles on all sorts of subjects poured from her tireless pen. She was a pioneer of educational reform in South Australia, and wrote a notable little book on civics called "The Laws We Live Under" for use in State schools.

She was a foundation member of the Adelaide Hospital Commission and gave help to women's suffrage movements.

She was guardian time and again throughout her long life to the orphan children of friends or relations; she kept up her literary studies and taught herself Latin; and all the while "carried her flag" for proportional representation up and down the continent, speaking at meetings, and travelling under all sorts of discomfort and hardships.

In 1893, at the age of 68, she left for a lecture tour of America as a Government Commissioner and a delegate to the World's Fair Congress in Chicago. Her visit was an enormous success, and her passport to the hearts of progressive Americans was the fact that she came "from Australia, the home of the secret ballot!"

This incredible woman, nearly 70 years old, travelled up and down the United States, addressing meetings, preaching from pulpits, and giving interviews to the Press. She met many famous people, including Henry George and Oliver Wendell Holmes, as well as the young Helen Keller, about to take her university degree.

One homely little touch is the way Catherine was impressed by the superiority of American domestic arrangements, even 56 years ago. She speaks of a terrace of 40 houses in Brooklyn, all warmed by central heating from one furnace, with hot water laid on, lifts, and "cupboards everywhere, ensuring the maximum of comfort with the minimum of labor."

On her return to Australia she had the satisfaction of seeing women in South Australia given the vote, and she herself was the first woman to seek election in a political contest, standing unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Federal Convention in 1897.

Her candidature aroused great interest and gave the cause of proportional representa- tion further impetus, especially with the example of Tasmania, South Africa, and Belgium before the world.

By 1902 effective voting had taken shape at least in the form of a Bill introduced into the South Australian Legislative Council, and by 1909, the year before her death, her goal was in sight, though she was not to witness the final victory.

Catherine's mother had died in 1884 at the age of 97, and though Catherine remained cheerful and active, she never really recovered from the blow. At the age of 84, still young in heart and forward-looking, she sat down to write her autobiography, but left it unfinished at the point at which her mother had died. She herself died at Norwood, in South Australia, in April, 1910, and her autobiography was finished by her friend and colleague, Mrs. Jeanne Young, and published by the Adelaide "Register," for which she had written so long.

Mrs. Young's words are her most fitting monument: "No truer friend, no better helper, no more sympathetic worker on behalf of the distressed, the deserted, and the destitute ever lived than the 'Grand Old Woman of Australia.'"

First published in The Australian Women's Weekly, 16 September 1950

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

Reprint: A Distinguished Australian Woman

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It is rather amusing in reading the list of distinguished Australians whose portraits are to be placed in the Commonwealth Gallery, to find not one woman's name.

It is true that, in the making of Australia, the women who have contributed the most are those whose names are unknown to the public, though their memories are enshrined in the hearts of friends and families. They are women who have quietly taken their share of the burden, and walked shoulder to shoulder with their husbands through all the dangers of a new land; they are pioneer women who have bravely faced, and are still facing, the hardships and loneliness of the bush; they are the women who have worked unobtrusively at the making of good citizens; and for such women the nation itself is a monument, for without their part, the nation could not have come into being.

But out of the whole brave army of silent women there are a few who stand out as leaders, and those names are known to all. They are the women who have cut a path through the network of prejudice, and "blazed the trail" for their sisters following on behind them; and they have earned the right to the title of "distinguished Australians."

The first of these names which will come to every mind is that of Catherine Helen Spence, the "grand old woman" of Australia. Our State Children's Relief Departments stand in every state as an undying monument to Catherine Spence, and generations of children throughout the years will have cause to bless her name, which is known throughout the world. There was never politician yet who more nobly earned a place amongst the "distinguished Australians."

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 1912

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

No Books.

The problem of what to do with our books in an ordinary house, where no room is set apart for a library, is a very real one. Books have an exuberant habit of increasing by compound interest, and people who like a place for everything, and everything in its place, come to consider an overflow of books as just so much rubbish to be removed. People of that temperament, though, have their own remedy, a very sound one, if only it is used in time. The good old way, the simple plan: If you don't want to be faced with difficulties about books, don't have any books. Refuse to collect them, either for yourself or your family. Ignore them. Evict them. Personally, I don't know how this is done. I couldn't do it, but I know there are homes where books are simply eliminated; I have seen them; we have all seen them. You look round a room and see tables, chairs, flowers perhaps, a gramophone perhaps, but no disturbing element in the form of books. With regard to books, the room is as bare as the back of your hand. Now I call that masterly: ingene solitude. Those who actually love, books, the disturbers of our mental peace, may deplore the barrenness of such rooms. Perhaps in some moods I do so myself. Still, one must admire the consistently bare surface presented to the eye and mind. "They make a desert and call, it peace." Somehow it's hard to find ex- pressions of unmixed admiration for the achievement of bookless calm! Yet I repeat it; the achievement is masterly, and I don't know how it is done.

Books As Upholstery.

Once or twice it has happened to me, as it may happen to the best of us, to stay in a house where the choice of books was simply inexplicable. One was the home of a wealthy widow, who had just had her whole house redecorated and refurnished. The room where I slept had a elaborate fireplace, and the mantelpiece had several little brackets and shelves at the sides. The shelves could not be left empty, but they would not hold large books; besides, this was a bedroom, unfit for large tomes. The upholsterer had evidently realised this; for he had supplied, along with the elaborate mantelpiece, twelve inches of short books to fill each of the shelves. The most becoming series of books that would fit those shelves happened to be the series known as the Temple Classics, bound in soft green kid, very delightful. Twelve inches of those books gave you quite a selection. Three volumes of Dante, three of Sterne, two of Matthew Arnold, Abelard, and Heloise, a good deal of Carlyle, "much riches in a little room"' indeed! The trouble was, though, that the upholsterer had gauged the space on the shelves so well that none of the books would come out. He had also, I fancy, chosen them "classical" in hopes that nobody would ever want to take them out, as he did not want them disturbed. As for me, I felt that I now knew the meaning of the words, "spirits on prison."

Another Solution.

You can deal with books by refusing to deal with them at all, that is by abolishing them. You can solve the problem by treating them as upholstery and never reading them. Other people, again, though fond of books, honestly dislike seeing them about a room. It is a distaste that I cannot understand, but I suppose some people feel the same about their friends, enjoying their existence, but not wanting to be made aware of it too often. Lately I came across this description, for instance, in Wells' book, "The World of William Clissold." The writer is describing his simple and delightful study, and says:  

There is a large cupboard in which books are hidden, for the backs of modern books, if they are displayed, talk overmuch.

So you hide them in a cupboard, where they might be rifles, or jam-pots, or old boot ! So if you, enter that room, admitted to be a study, you would not be aware of the presence of books at all!  Most of us have seen rooms that came to be called "study," in which there actually were no books; probably a drawer containing fishing-tackle was their nearest approach to the material of meditation. But Clissold has books, and has a comfortable home for them, only he condemns them to lie concealed. His reason is that the backs of modern books are too blatant, and perhaps that is true. We have learnt the ways of reclame too thoroughly. Every book is its own advertisement right up to the day of its death, especially since the glaring jackets have been made so attractive that people seldom have the courage to discard them. Well, Clissold solves the problem to his own satisfaction; a book should he read but not seen. He is entitled to his own choice.

More Positive Pleasure.  

All these solutions, it will be noticed are negative. They are ways of treating books so that we are almost untroubled by them. What about people who enjoy the troubling things? Even apart from their contents, for instance, French books are probably the most troublesome of all, for they are bound in thin paper. The theory is that you are a wealthy person with a well-established library and a pretty taste in bind-ings. What you want, then, is a well-printed book on good paper; to you the temporary binding, which the book wears when you buy it, is negligible, as you intend to have the book bound at once by your ancestral book-binder. He will use the special morocco or calf, or half-calf (I always wonder which end of a calf they use for that), which will agree with all the other volumes in your collection. Good.  But most people are not like you; the paper cover in which a book is born is good enough for them. The book falls to pieces soon; so much the better for the booksellers. And besides, how attractive those French books can be in their fresh paper covers! Leaving aside those that are in covers with pictures, there are those enormous series in an inconspicuous lemon-yellow. No, not, "yellowbacks." This binding can cover anything from the sermons of Bossuet to the latest word by Proust's successors; the point is its fresh attractiveness. Somewhere in his novel of Paris life, "The Ambassadors," Henry James grows positively lyrical about those yellow books, comparing them with a mass of fresh fruit, ripe and enticing. You feel they are coloured by the sheer presence of vitamines. Who could bear to hide such treasures in a cupboard? Besides, the lettering on their backs is discreet; their delicate personality it is that beckons. And Henry James was not alone in feeling that enticement.

When Books Take Charge.

So far I have discussed people who know how to keep books in their place. Is the reverse picture too gloomy to be borne? Shall I tell you what a home is like when books take control, hold the helm, steer the car, wield the lash, and sa forth? Well, this is the way it goes. You move into a new house, even temporarily. You. find there is only one bookshelf, and you construct another, which should be more than enough, as you will not spend more than a few months here. In three months' time, what has happened? Well, the few books you had when you came are still there, but unnoticeable, among the hundred or so more that have accumulated. "Like breeds like"; is that it? Some of the new ones are real acquisitions; you will never part with them. Others are horrible accidents that have occurred to you because So-and-so wanted to try to convince you of double-tax, or auto-ventriloquism, or how to make wine from papaws. What does one do with books like this? That, I admit, is a real problem. One can't take them up and write on the flyleaf, "To Mary, with love," because then Mary will read the book as from you, and will imbibe its doctrine as yours and tell her friends you're a double-taxer who lives on papaw wine. The thing to do with these books in the end, I suppose, is to dump them very anonymously somewhere. Meanwhile, they help to crowd our real books off the two small shelves. Suddenly some one wants to look up something in the small Shelley that is always being submerged by heavier books: small Shelley lurks darkling. Every consultation of him is a crisis:  

   Lest storms should overset the leaning pile
   Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight.

Cowper's haystack knew all about our book problems. Meanwhile, by facing those dreadful risks of collapse and of flooding, we have at least a small Shelley at hand, and can read aloud a chapter of James Stephens' "Crook of Gold" when "the world is too much with us." We have some poems and novels that their writers have sent us, and that no one can be allowed to borrow. We have above all the sense of abundant life, the overflowing life of the mind, that the visible presence of books can really give. I admit that it is a disturbing presence, but a seed, in the ground is also disturbing when it insists on germinating. After all, some one else must put the case for the swept and garnished room, devoid of books. I cannot put it fairly, for I am too willing that books should have it all their own way.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 20 August 1927

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

"The Man Who Loved Children" by Christina Stead. (Peter Davies, London).  

Australian-born Christina Stead, in "The Man Who Loved Children," has written an extraordinarily good novel of the disharmonious life of an American family.

It is a grim story set in an atmosphere of hatred, a realistic presentation of a ruthless egocentric and his unfortunate, harassed wife, who quarrel brutally and bitterly in front of their children.  

But it has many amusing moments: the dialogue, of which there is a great deal, is witty, strikingly original, and some of the situations are riotously and robustly comic.  

Sam Pollit, a fantastic figure, dominates the book. Head of a Scientific Department in Washington, he is a boastful buffoon, an idealistic egoist, who struts and performs before the appreciative audience of his six young children. He is forever talking, demonstrating bis love for the children, whining for sympathy against the im- possible conduct of their mother.

The mother, Henrietta, belongs to a wealthy family of Baltimore people, but, like the other Collyers, is wasteful, improvident and unreliable. She is a beautiful, headstrong creature when she marries the handsome, good-living widower, Sam Pollit, but marriage soon changes her. Finding Sam ungenerous with his money, she quickly gets in the toils of moneylenders, and for the rest of her life is dunned by them, always borrowing more to pay off interest, never having enough money for household expenses, always deceiving Sam about where the money goes.

At the beginning of the book the Pollits are living in a lovely, large house outside Washington, a house belonging to Henny's father. Here Sam revels in the garden, the little menagerie he has, and, of course, always the children. Henny, condemned to do the housework and the children's mending, complains bitterly, never speaks to Sam, lives on cups of tea, curry and aspirin, and has frequent trips to town to enjoy the company of a young admirer.

Then Sam, who is an anthropologist, is sent on an expedition to Malaya. His ways so irritate the head of the expedition that numerous complaints are made to Washington, with the result that, on.his return, Sam is suspended without pay. But worse is to come. Henny's father dies hopelessly in debt, and the Pollits have to move out of their grand home and take a tumbledown old house in a poor district outside Baltimore.

Here, while Sam potters happily about with his growing children, repairing, pulling down, and making himself generally a handyman, Henny frets, sells all her treasures to get money to meet the demands of the usurious lenders, and becomes more and more desperate.

All the time frightening quarrels go on, quarrels that lead Henny to the verge of insanity, that make Sam feel more righteous than ever. The end, of course, is tragedy for Henrietta, but some promise of a future for the overbearing Sam.

That is the bare outline of the book, but there is much more in it than that. It is a novel over which Christina Stead must have slaved to provide the right quality of scene, dialogue, characterisation. Her Sam Pollit is a memorable, larger-than-life figure, a contemptible character if ever there was one, yet a man whom we cannot wholly despise. Henrietta, on the other hand, is drawn as a rather sympathetic character, but we cannot keep patience with her dramatics, her threats of murder and suicide, and her flamboyant show of self-sacrifice.

The children are only sketched in on this large-size Pollit canvas, but their inclusion adds life and color to the picture.

The only gentleness in the book is in the chapters about the adolescent Louie, Sam's child by his first marriage, an ugly, clumsy girl, a slovenly drudge in the house, who yet has some thing of the poet in her, has her soul uplifted by her devotion to her teacher, and is the only one of the children to draw completely away from her domineering father.

It is on Louie that the atmosphere of hate in the house has the greatest effect: Louie precipitates the inevitable tragedy.

Besides the Pollit household, Miss Stead brings a number of other characters into the story--Sam's sisters, the large Collyer family, Louie's mother's relations, all oddities; and the more prosaic figures of the neighborhood, and Sam's office cronies and enemies.

Miss Stead is a writer with remarkable literary creative power. With this novel she comes to the peak of her career, assumes a place among the greatest novelists of the day. "The Man Who Loved Children" is a book that merits unqualified literary appreciation as well as providing rich and original reading entertainment.

First published in The Advertiser, 13 September 1941

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

Reprint: Our Australian Poets: Henry Halloran by Zadriel

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"I wish I had some of the versifying talent of Halloran," exclaimed Sir Thomas Mitchell (he was then engaged on the translation of "Camoens"). "I would make this a rhyme, not a prose transalation, as I must now call it." "Mr. Halloran?" I rather queried than said. "Yes; he is in my office. I call him our colonial Lovelace, or Davenant; but I expect he will make a name for himself." "Unless," I answered, "He might have too many sheep on a Shenstone's Leasowes. Don't you think, Sir Thomas, we have poetry enough?" "No. We never have had, nor never will have too much of the right sort. Poetry is the grand purifier of the wave of intellect which keeps seething and boiling around us. We owe more to our poets than we do to our prose writers, just as a Christian would know more of the Psalms than he would of any other portion of the Scripture." "Give me the songs of a nation and I shall know know how to rule it," said a great man, and if the more elaborate works of Campbell or Burns, or of Moore were forgotten, "Ye Mariners of England," "Scots Wha Hae," or the "Sweet Yale of Avoca," would be remembered as long as our language is spoken." Here," said an old and valued friend to me, who had been long prostrated by that terrible affliction, a nervous disorder, "here I have received more benefit from those few lines of good old quaint and pious George Herbert than I have from the Pharmacopiae. Shall I repeat them to you?" "Do."

   Who would have thought my withered soul
      Should have recovered greenness?
   It was gone quite underground, as flowers depart
      To see their mother-root, when they have blown
   Where they together all the hard weather
      Dead to the world, kept house unknown.

   And now in age again I live and write;
      I once more smell the dew and rain,
   And relish versing. Oh! my only light,
      It cannot be that I am he
   On whom thy tempests fell all night.

I have never had the pleasure of reading Mr. Halloran's poems in a collected form, nor do I even know whether they have been published; but from the different fugitive pieces of his which I have met with in the colonial newspaper press, he is a poet of no mean order; more classical, I should say, than artistic, breathing a deep spirit of refinement, which is the more remarkable as he wrote at a time when the grossest sensuality was the order of the day. Like most men who are not compelled to depend upon their pen for subsistence, there is nothing paradoxical in his effusions; there is an easy, quiet flow of gentlemanly, good humored musical rhyme, more of the Corinthian than the Doric about it, more of the urbe in rure than the rus in urbe, and, above all things, possessing the rare merit of modern poetry-- that is, of being understood. When I first saw Mr. Halloran, he was in a carriage; when I last saw him he was in a carriage; and I sincerely trust that he will ascend Parnassus in the same vehicle, and get crowned, too, as one of first who stepped boldly forward as a purifier of the public taste.

First published in The Queenslander, 10 April 1869

Reprint: The Late Mr. Henry Halloran, C.M.G.

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The death of Mr. Henry Halloran, C.M.G., occurred on the 19th instant at his late residence at Mowbray, Ashfield. As a very old colonist, the name of Mr. Halloran has long been familiar in New South Wales, his frequent contributions to the press, and his readiness on all occasions to use his gifts for the celebration of any event of public interest having won for him a place among the poets of Australia. Mr. Halloran was a native of South Africa, having been born in 1811 at Capetown, where his father was rector of the grammar school and chaplain to the forces. After some residence in England he came out to this colony, entering the Survey Office in 1827, and continued in the Civil Service for a period of 51 years, when he retired on a pension, having risen to the position of Principal Under-secretary, in which he was considered to have shown remarkable administrative ability. In 1841 he married the eldest daughter of Mr. Underwood, of Ashfield Park, and has left a numerous family to mourn their loss. Mr. Halloran was an intimate friend of Charles Harper, Henry Kendall, and other notable men in the early days of literature in the colony. His funeral took place on Sunday last in the presence of a large number of friends. The remains were deposited in the family vault in the burial ground attached to St. John's Church, Ashfield.

First published
in The Illustrated Sydney News, 27 May 1893

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

Reprint: The Australian Poets' Poet

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Some years ago the Melbourne "Argus" took a plebiscite of its readers in order to discover was regarded as the greatest poet. The first votes went in order to Adam Lindsay Gordon, Henry Clarence Kendall, and "Banjo" Paterson, while Victor Daley got only 49 votes compared with Gordon's 459. However democratic the method may be, the proper places of our poets on the slopes of our Australian Parnassus can hardly be decided by a referendum. It is just thirty years since Victor Daley died, and in the interval Gordon's bust has been placed in Westminster Abbey. But the lapse of years has not changed the verdict of Bertram Stevens. -- "Though Daley never appealed to so large an audience as the ballad-writers he was the writer best beloved of the writing clan." There is something fine and delicate in the tones and undertones of Victor Daley that has appealed irresistibly to our younger singers. If Edmund Spenser has been called "the poets' poet" in the noble sequence of English song, so in the briefer annals of Australian verse Victor Daley has earned a similar title by virtue of his two slender volumes of exquisite poetry -- "Dawn and Dusk" (1898) and "Wine and Roses" (1911). Daley is a lyrical poet, pure and simple, and though he experimented in "His Mate" with the ballad it was only to discover that he had picked up the wrong instrument. For "His Mate" is not a ballad, after all, but a mystic parable on the text, "I was thirsty and ye gave me drink." Victor Daley did not belong to the school of galloping rhymesters. He belonged to the tribe of Coleridge, Swinburne, Rossetti, and W. B. Yeats. The love of words and the concord of sweet sounds was in his bones. His imagination minted lovely imagery as the poet only can and a versifier never. He has no lesson to teach us unless it be to glimpse the flying skirts of evanescent Beauty and pursue her to her ethereal palaces. No Australian poet before him created so many of those images which only a poet conceives. His verse is woven of rainbows. It proves nothing any more than a strain of sweet music from the horns of Elfland. Daley lived in the realm of pure poetry where everything is transfigured as in a golden sunset. His themes are the joys of youth and sighs for youth's passing.

He sings a convivial song, too,
but with a difference. It has none of the "clinkum -- canikin -- clink" of Shakespeare's tavern ditty, yet it has a fine extravagance of its own.  

   If beings of mythology
      Could live at my commands,
   Briareus I'd choose to be
      Who had a hundred hands;
   And every hand of mine   
   Would hold a pint of wine.

   And of those beakers ninety-nine
      With white wine and with red
   Should brim for dear old friends of mine.
      The living and the dead. 
   By Pluto, there would be
   A noble revelry!

   Then let us unto Bacchus sing
      Evoe! up and down--
   For Bacchus is the wisest King
      Who ever wore a crown;
   His vine-leaves hide from view
   More wit than Plato knew.


Bacchanalian poets have written
in this strain while leading abstemious lives, but Daley lived his poetry too much for that enviable achievement. Although his second book is called "Wine and Roses" Daley is rarely the poet of the pot. When he sings of wine he does it with the pathetic grace of Omar --

   Very often when I'm drinking
      Of the old days I am thinking,
   Of the good old days when living was a joy.
      When I see folks marching dreary
   To the tune of Miserere --
      Then I thank the Lord that still I am a boy.


The poems where we really
savour the quintessential Daley, the gossamer-weaver, are such as this-- "Sunset, a fragment." Who, we ask, can sing of sunset with any freshness? Daley certainly does when he sings --

   Down in the dim sad West the sun
      Is dying like a dying fire.
   The fiercest lances of his light
      Are spent; I watch him drop and die
   Like a great king who falls in fight;
      None dared the duel of his eye
   Living, but, now his eye is dim,
   The eyes of all may stare at him.


And then we have the simple
intensity of "Passion Flower" with the same thought at its root as Leigh Hunt's "Jenny Kissed Me"

   Choose who will the better part,
   I have held her heart to heart;
   And have felt her heart-strings stirred,
   And her soul's still singing heard,
   For one golden haloed hour,
   Of Love's life the passion-flower.
   So the world may roll or rest--
   I have tasted of its best,
   And shall laugh while I have breath
   At thy dart and thee, O Death.


Many of Daley's original meta
phors have a haunting beauty. So he speaks of the insect Homer "singing his Iliad on a blade of grass." The funeral procession of a dead girl winds along "like a black serpent with a snow-white bird held in its fangs." And who can mistake the Celtic glamoury of the simile of the sun sinking "like a peony drowning in wine," which comes from an exquisite poem "A Sunset Fantasy," one of his very best, a poem which surely answers his own description --

   A scented song blown oversea,
      As though from bowers of bloom;
   A wind harp in a lilac tree
      Breathed music and perfume.

We seek in vain in Daley for profundity either of passion or of philosophy. He bears the heart of a boy, kindling to the raptures of youth echoing its sadness and revealing its undying charm. His strange poem "Ponce de Leon" expresses his longing to voyage with that conquistador of the Floridas.

   "Grieved am I, senor, and sorry,"
      Very courteously it said,
   "But I may not take you with me --
      But I only take the Dead.
   These alone may dare the voyage,
      These alone sail on the quest,
   For the fount of Youth Eternal,
      For the Islands of the Blest."

It was Daley's aspiration to write "songs and sonnets carven in fine gold." Of the eight sonnets he preserved the best is ''Anacreon," ending --

   There's honey still and roses on the earth
   And lips to kiss and jugs to drain with mirth,
   And lovers walk in pairs, but she is gone . . .
            Anacreon, Anacreon.

Daley's verse owes little to our Australian scenery beyond its golden sunshine. It seems rather to be an emanation from the Celtic wonderland, the true home of his spirit -- "His best verse," said Strong, "has peculiar grace and distinction, and sometimes achieves an almost Heinesque quality, as when he addresses his soul,"

   Be still and wait, O caged immortal Bird,
      Thou shalt be free;
   Not all in vain hast thou the voices heard
      Of lives to be.
   Be still and wait! No being that draws breath
      Thy bounds can set;
   Though God Himself forget thee, Faithful Death
      Will not forget.

Zora Cross has characterised Daley's verse with the same fine perceptiveness which marks his own laurel tribute for the brow of Kendall--

   Song was his friend and by a lyric thread
   He drew the waggon of Romance this way,
   And tossed her laughing spells about our day,
   That we might know pure Beauty had not fled,
   Old Poesy his wine and Rhyme his bread.
   Much did he find to share with mates born gay
   In blithe Bohemia that heard him play
   Harps of the wind full-stringed by fingers dead;
   A singing dreamer in a singing land,
   His jesting lips gave mirth to Death -- not tears. 


First published in The Courier-Mail, 18 May 1935

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

Reprint: Victor Daley's Last Work

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"WINE AND ROSES."

Most of the work in Victor J. Daley's
"Wine and Roses," is so good as to deserve to be called splendid. There is every evdence of a fine poetic sense of things, graceful reflectiveness and truth and moderation of statement. Probably no recent book of poems published in Australia is of quite equal merit. There is in much Australian verse a kind of rather obvious insurgent note, a tendency to arraign the scheme of things which seems founded more on personal feeling than on philosophy -- a flavour of wilful pessimism which seems incongruous in a new country. Nothing is more marked, at any rate, among the male writers than an absence not so much of the religious tone but of the spirit of reverence, and of the awe and mystery of things which feeling has furnished the mould for the highest and most lasting achievements. But it is plea- santly evident in Daley's work. He has an appreciation of the wonder of life and the universe, and has to a degree escaped the desiccating influence of the "Bulletin" school, which is frequently excellent in technique but burdened with its "passion" and cynicism.

The opening poem is on "Romance.":--


   Right grim gods be Reality and iron-handed Circumstance.
   Cast off their fetters, friend! Break free! -- and seek the shrine of fair Romance.
   And when dark days with cares would craze your brain, then she will take your hand,
   And lead you on by greenwood ways unto a green and pleasant land.

There may be a suggestion of jingle, but it is a graceful piece of work. The "Spring Song," too, is buoyant and beautiful:--

  "I am the Vision and the Dream
      Of trembling Age and Yearning Youth;
   I am the Sorceress Supreme.
      I am Illusion; I am truth.

   I am the queen to whom belongs
      The royal right great gifts to give;
   I am the Singer of the Songs
      That lure men on to live and live."


In "Players" there is the same perception of
underlying, beauty:

  "The things that are; the things that seem--
      Who shall distinguish Shape from Show?
   The great processional, splendid dream
      Of life is all I wish to know.
   There lives -- though Time should cease to flow,
      And stars their courses should forget--
   There lives a grey-haired Romeo,
      Who loves a golden Juliet."


"The Old Bohemian" has a touch of
Thackeray, for whom Daley seems to have much regard, and whose spirit he has largely caught:

  "Where are the songs -- the talk --
      The friends that used to be?
   I with my shadow walk
      At last for company."


Quotation, however, does not do justice to
the sustained beauty of this book, which will charm not only those who like observance of form but all, whether their tastes be simple or cultivated, who like the spirit of poetry. It is a good book of poems that can keep a reviewer reading till midnight, but these poems did that. They are excellent work and attain high water mark for literary and artistic execution. The book contains a well-written memoir of the author, who died in 1905, a victim to consumption. The get-up of the volume could not be better, paper, print, and everything being of the first class. (Sydney: Angus and Robertson.)

First published in The West Australian, 22 April 1911

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

Reprint: Edward Dyson

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Prominent amongst the early band of bush balladists developed by the Sydney "Bulletin" and yet with a distinctive note of his own is Edward Dyson. A. B. Paterson, Henry Lawson, John Farrell, and Edward Dyson, it has been said, all graduated in the same school, that of journalism and the Sydney "Bulletin" was their nursing mother. John Farrell is the oldest member of this little group, Edward Dyson is the youngest. Like Lawson, Dyson has written wore notable work in prose than in verse, but his poems constitute a unique contribution to the literature of Australia.

''There is a certain similarity of style running through the whole four," says Henry G. Turner, of this group, in "The Development of Australian Literature," and though they frequently view the same subject from a totally opposite standpoint, the influence of Adam Lindsay Gordon, of Bret Harte, and of Brunton Stephens is in them all." Apart from their common interest in singing in differing strains of the life of the bush, Dyson is distinguished from the other members of this group in the peculiar inspiration he drew from the mines and the miners in the days when it was possible to invest mines and mining fields with a poetical glamour. Dyson is also distinguished by a genial humour, which in his prose run to the broadest farce.

In an account he once wrote of his methods of work, Edward Dyson asserted that he went though "a process of soakage and seepage." He said that he allowed his experiences to soak for years in his memory before he attempted to draw upon them for use in fashioning stories and verses, as he held that experience needed the mellowing influence of time before it acquired literary value. His variegated literary output must therefore be regarded as the evidence of a rich and varied experience which has "soaked and seeped," in his own geological metaphor, through the personality of the writer.

Edward Dyson was born at Morrison's, near Ballarat, in 1865. His family had come to Australia in 1852 and were in the thick of all the gold rushes of the period. Shortly after Edward's birth the family moved to the big mining field of Alfredton. Later moves carried the family to Melbourne, Bendigo, and Ballarat until, when Edward was 11 years old, they were back at Alfredton again. In the meantime the big mines had closed down and the worked-out shafts and abandoned workings excercised a peculiar fascination for the young Dyson, to be reflected in such of his later work as "The Worked-out Mine," with its--

  "Above the shaft in measured space
      A rotted rope swings to and fro,
   Whilst o'er the plat and on the brace
      The silent shadows come and go.

   And there below, in chambers dread,
      Where darkness like a fungus clings,
   Are lingering still the old mine's dead,
      Bend o'er and hear their wisperings." 

Other experiences of this period when Dyson actively shared the adventures of the youngsters of his age, are no doubt reflected in the rollicking boys' story - "The Gold Stealers," in which Waddy forms a counterpart of Alfredton. Before he had reached 13, Dyson had set out to explore the world as assistant to a hawker, his adventures in this capacity providing the raw material for his later story "Tommy the Hawker." Returning to Ballarat, he worked for a while as whim boy, his recollections of this life providing the foundations for his most effective poem, "The Old Whim Horse," paralleled by Dyson's own dream, as he sang:--

  "See the old horse take, like a creature dreaming,
      On the ring once more his accustomed place;
   But the moonbeams full on the ruins streaming
      Show the scattered timbers and grass-grown brace;
   Yet he hears the sled in the smithy falling,
      And the empty truck as it rattles back,
   And the boy who stands by the anvil, calling;
      And he turns and backs, and 'takes up slack.'"

Later mining at Clunes and Bungaree, on the alluvial field at Lefroy in Tasmania, and then back as a trucker in a deep mine, and afterwards at battery building in Victoria, Dyson became familiar with every detail of the mining life of the period. This experience is all reflected in his first book of poems ''Rhymes from the Mines and other Lines," published in 1896. In "The Trucker," in particular is a vivid account of the life of the lads which Dyson had shared:

  "Yes, the truckers' toil is rather heavy grafting at a rule --
      Much heavier than the wages, well I know:
   But the life's not full of trouble and the fellow is a fool
      Who cannot find some pleasure down below."

And in "The Prospectors" he paints the characteristics of a type that is by no means extinct to-day:--

  "We are common men with the faults of most, and a few that ourselves have grown,
   With the good traits, too, of the common herd, and some more that are all our own;
   We have drunk like beasts and have fought like brutes, and have stolen and lied and slain.
   And have paid the score in the way of men -- in remorse and fear and pain.
   We have done great deeds in our direst needs in the horrors of burning drought,
   And at mateship's call have been true through all to the death with the Furthest Out."

It has been said that Dyson's poems, on their first appearance, suffered by comparison with those of Paterson and Lawson because his mining songs lacked any distinctive Australian note, but it is certain that the vivid realism, the genial sense of humour and the kindly human understanding which inspires these simple poems will ensure that the best of them will live.

In his prose work Dyson has achieved a number of successes. "Fact'ry 'Ands" and "Benno" were responsible for the creation of characters which have become as well-known as the most famous characters of Dickens. The characterisation is fine throughout, but the humour runs to the broadest farce.

"Below and On Top," and "The Missing Link," contain some of the best of Dyson's short stories. With "In the Roaring Fifties," a more ambitious novel, published in 1906, Dyson was less successful than with his lighter sketches. Many other short stories have not yet appeared in book form.

Altogether Edward Dyson has been responsible for a notable addition to the literature of Australia. He has opened new veins and exploited them according to their peculiar requirements. Lacking the imagination which would have raised his creations to the higher levels of literature, he has shown himself a faithful recorder of much that is interesting and a versatile and adaptable craftsman. Living wholly by his craft he has shown that it is possible even in Australia to devote a life to writing and manage to live.

First published in The Morning Bulletin [Rockhampton], 12 January 1931

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

Reprint: The Adventures of a Push

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"Benno; and Some of the Push," by Edward Dyson. (N.S.W. Bookstall Co., Sydney.) In his "Fact'ry "Ands," Mr. Dyson proved himself a master craftsman in the handling of Australian slum slang; and in continuing his comic history of a Melbourne paper-bag factory, he displays an even more copious vocabulary of language, that would tax the philological understanding of Professor Max Muller himself. Nevertheless, what might have been less intelligible to the linguistic pundit than Sanskrit in Assyrian cuneiform character, is probably quite easily understanded of the people constituting a Little Bourke-street push. Even when not absolutely lucid to a reader whose slum dialect education has been somewhat neglected, the language of Benno and his pals is always patently expressive and picturesquely forceful. Thus, for example, one may not know the precise meaning of the following exordium -- "G'out, yer monkey-mugged slum mungrool, yer'll cop yer doss" -- but no reader is liable to misconstrue it as a flattering eulogy or a polite invitation to afternoon tea. Mr. Dyson's factory hands are, of course, wildly, grossly exaggerated; but they are not intended to be more than expressive and suggestive caricatures. Their ruggedly rhetorical vituperation and cryptic verbiage lend force and point to situations and incidents which, despite a not inconsiderable flavouring of humour, would sound somewhat flat in decorous English. It is true that the vraisemblance of the dialogue is somewhat marred by the rigorous exclusion of the larrikin's pet adjective and substantive and of his most vigorously damnatory expletives -- but that was virtually unavoidable. A taste of Mr. Dyson's quality may be given, however, in respect to a desperate fistic duel between rivals in the affections of a flirtatious "donah." The Helen who had caused this war, it may be explained, was from the hue of her capillary attractions known as "Ginge." Thus speaks the jealous factory knight:

 "It's all fixed up, Mills."  

 "Wot! as she guv yeh brusher?" cried the packer.  

"No blinded fear. Ginge know's w'en she's got a good thing. The fight's 'ranged 'tween me 'n th' other bloke. We fight the prelim to the Bull Green 'n Coffee Hogan scrap et th' Smithers St. Hathletic room, Monday night fortnight, catch-weights, for harf a Jim 'n a five bob side wager-eight rounds, one t' win. Markis o' Queensbee rules, four ounce gloves 'n regerlation trunks. Prelimery starts punctooal at eight. Prices, two, one, and a tizzie. We've both signed harticles."  

"Good e-nough !" said the packer. I mus 'ave a deener's worth iv that."

Anyone who wishes to part with a "deener" can get for the money the whole worth of Benno and his push, whose adventures, it may be explained, have previously been chronicled in the "Bulletin. They are unmistakeably Bulletinesque.

First published in The Western Mail, 9 September 1911

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

Reprint: Slang and the Coining of Words

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One of the minor results of the Great War has been the addition to the English tongue of a great number of new and strange words, some of which, ugly and useless, are doomed to die on early death, but others will undoubtedly pass into the currency of the language. Some persons profess to look with considerable displeasure on the coining of words, treating all strange words as slang. There could not be a greater error. Of all the languages of the world, the English has the greatest power of assimalating to and incorporating with itself, all useful words with which it comes into contact. We cannot treat Englisn as we treat Greek and Latin, as a sacred treasure from which nothing must be taken, and to which nothing must be added. English is a living and growing speech, constantly expanding, and always ready to incorporate with itself any useful word. It borrows, it steals, it assimilates, and asks no questions about the origin. It is the only language that does this to any extent, and this indication of immense vitality is probably due to the great success of the British in colonisation, and to their world-wide association with other races. No language has influenced its growth so much as Greek has done, but practically all the languages of the earth have administered to its wants. Just as new worde are being constantly added to the language, so time has taken curious liberties with other words which, classic in the days of Shakespeare, have become obsolete or are regarded as slang. To refer in polite society in these days to a man on a drinking bout as being "on a bender" would be to leave oneself open to the charge of using slang. Yet in the days of Allan Ramsay it was the correct expression. The word "flunkey," as signifying a servile attitude towards somebody in a higher position, is slang, yet it was classical English when used by Thackeray and Carlyle. Thousands of such useful   words have been lost to the language chiefiy because they have been used loosely and incorrectly, and have lost their original meanings. Excepting in our Law Courts, for instance, the word "nice," as indicating a point of keen or fine distinction, is seldom heard in its proper sense, but is loosely used to mean something pleasant.

Quite recently a little book was published by the Lothian Book Publishing Co., Ltd., of Melbourne, entitled "Digger Dialects." Its author, Mr. W. H. Downing, late of the 57th Battalion of the A.I.F., set out to collect all the words of Australian slang that were born during the war, and he has compiled a glossary of probably 1500 words or more. The booklet naturally is interesting to a student of literature, but it certainly must not be taken for what it purports to be, because many of the words are of British origin, many of them were in the argot of the underworld in Australian cities years before the war occurred, and some of them owe their origin to America, which, of all countries in the world, is richest in descriptive slang, and has passed more words than any other English-speaking country into the currency of the language. It is, perhaps, an impossible task to expect anybody to compile a complete glossary of the plundered words that became part of the language of the soldiers. Some of them were, undoubtedly of French descent, but they were so distorted by faulty pronunciation that they have ceased to bear even the remotest likeness to their parents. For instance, the word "napoo" sounds like the name of a character in a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, but it is the English rendering of the French phrase "il n'y a plus," and it is used to express any gradation of lacking from being absent to complete annihilation. "Toot sweet," from the French "toute de suite," betokens extreme urgency. Things that gave pleasure to the soldier linguist were "tray bong," whilst "tray beans" expressed the sense of goodness. ''Dud," in the classical English of two centuries ago, was a useless rag, and in the soldiers' dialect it came to mean something worthless, as, for instance, a shell that had failed to burst. "Stunt" is a particularly ugly word that seems to have crept into the language through American theatrical companies, but it now serves a useful purpose as representing some arduous enterprise or work, or some smart aerial evolution. "Camouflage" is probably the most useful word that has been directly stolen from the French, and it has now passed into every day speech, and especially that of politics, to which it fas no application in its original meaning.  

Perhaps the best compilation of Australian slang is to be found in the poems of C J. Dennis, yet many of his words, such as "clobber," meaning clothes, and "monicker," meaning a name, are well, known in the argot of East London. English slang, as a rule, is not descriptive, and while Australian slang is occasionally expressive it falls far short of those word-pictures which are presented by the really first-class slang of America, such as "high brow" to represent a man of learning, or "you're on the freight train" as a suggestion that one is slow on the "up-take," another useful American term. Turning to "Digger Dialects" we find a cigarette described as "a-coffin nail" or "a consumption stick."   A "deep thinker" is one who was late in enlisting, and a "rainbow"--we believe that is of English origin--represents one who joined the colours at the time of the armistice, or after the storm. To represent the various nuances of the state of drunkenness the "Digger" had several repressions, such as "blithered," "inked, "oiled," "molo," and "stunned," whilst the hard drinker was "a steady lapper," and his orgy was "a beer-up." A. "sin-shifter" was an army chaplain, and probably originated from the American cowboy term of "sin-buster." Unfortunately the origin of the words is not given, and slang falls very flat and unprofitable unless it conveys its own meaning, or its origin is appropriate., We know that an English pound-note is called a Bradbury, because Mr. Bradbury is secretary to the Treasury which issued the notes. But why is a "'Tired Theodore" a long-distance heavy shell? A "bucking horse," as meaning a sovereign, seems plain enough, but why should an Australian shilling be called "a rat and fowl"? The words "brass" and "tin," signifying money, are as old as Dickens, and such words as "dough" and "sugar" are much more typically Australian. "Tinkle-tinkle" for an effeminate man, "treacle-miner" for a man who boasts of his wealth or position, a "washout" representing a failure, and "a wind-bag," to describe a braggart, carry their own meanings, but why should a military cross and a military medal be called "Machonochie"? And why should the Queen's head on a coin be called "Mick,"' or "to take to the tall timber" be used as a term meaning to abscond? The rhyming slang such as "Almond rocks" for socks, or "Babbling brook" for an army cook, is even more absurd and tantalising. There appear also to be many nice distinctions in the slang terms, and some of them, such as "parakeet," meaning a staff-officer, because of the red tabs on the uniform, are expressive. Many of the words will die, and deserve to die, but others will be included in future dictionaries, and will add to the wealth of the richest language in the world, though, certainly, not the easiest to master or the most musical to speak.


First published in The Queenslander, 27 March 1920

Note: you can read C.J. Dennis's glossary of slang here.

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

Reprint: Fair Dinkum - It's All Right (So Canberra Says)

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CANBERRA, Wed.-- Federal Parliamentarians have varied views on the use of the term "Fair Dinkum."

Three of them to-day commented on the statement in New York by the Australian Consul-General (Mr. C. V. Kellaway) that the term was not a common expression among Australians.

Mr. W. M. Hughes (Lib.. N.S.W.): The expression is purely Australian and has of course been much more general than it is to-day. After the first World War it was much more common than it is to-day, but it is still understood by all Australians. Those who don't understand it - well whatever they are they are not Australians.

Mr. L. Haylen (Lab., N.S.W.): "Fair Dinkum" is part of the Australian speech and it is certainly part of the Australian literature. It was immortalized by C. J. Dennis, and was used long before that. It is an honourable label and one of our own words wherever it came from.

Dame Enid Lyons (Lib., Tas): The expression still has a meaning in Australia, but it has become unfashionable. Its period of greatest use was after the last war.

First published in The Courier-Mail, 11 November 1948

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

Reprint: Australian Poets: Voices from the Past by D. J. Quinn

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The recent correspondence in the "Herald," on the subject of the late Chris Brennan's poems sent me rummaging among old Press cuttings for a copy of an article, entitled "Poets and Poetry in New South Wales," which I compiled for the "Sydney Mail" 27 years ago. The article took its origin in what seemed to me a surprising piece of news I had stumbled upon, namely, that the output of verse in Australia exceeded per head of population that of any other country; and I felt that a public largely indifferent to the claims of poetry might still be interested to learn something about the diligent band of versifiers who had earned for us such a measure of pre-emience in this department of letters.

Reading that article now in the light of history, one gets the impression that those were halcyon days for poets, whether major or minor. "Banjo" Patterson, with 40,000 volumes sold, and Henry Lawson, with 17,000, loomed large in the public eye. Ogilvie (then absent from Australia) had several thousands to his credit. It was comparatively easy to get good verse printed and paid for, and publishers were almost benevolent in their regard for budding authors. Publishers to-day, alas! frown daily at the very mention of the word poetry.

AUSTRALIAN'S "LIVE" POETRY.

Not that everything was couleur de rose 27 years ago.

   Whose picnics on Parnassus,
   Need not look for cakes and ale.

Our poets for the most part were ill-requited in the matter of rewards. One or two felt rather bitter about this neglect. Roderic Quinn, one of our sweetest singers, was not disposed to quarrel with the public on that account. "There has been a large amount of grumble," he said, "over the fact that Australian poets have not had adequate rewards, but with our small, almost stagnant, population, how can we hope for anything better? The circumstance that we are not a 'home' people is also bad for the poets. The sunlight, the beaches, the surf, and the harbour draw us out of doors, and we 'live' poetry instead of reading it." It was his opinion that Sydney Harbour, artistically and poetically, exercised a more potent influence over the people than any number of books or poems.

Discussing public taste in poetry, J. le Gay Brereton thought that here, as probably in all English-speaking countries, there was it distinct preference for what was melodramatic rather than for what was poetic. He had no quarrel with the bush or the horse poem. One could have good ballad or bush poetry of a definite Australian nature, but he should be sorry to see poetry limited to those subjects. In his opinion, a great deal of the stuff accepted as Australian poetry was not poetry at all. "The Australian," he said, "has an ear which catches up a swinging measure; give him that and a topic which he enjoys and he is liable to be deceived into thinking that the result is not only poetry, but even good poetry."

BRENNAN'S IDEAL POET.

Chris Brennan, who was considered our leading exponent of poetry, properly so-called, "knew nothing of the public." His appeal was to a small cultured circle. "Who are the public" he parried when I ventured to ask if poems printed in the conventional manner with titles, capitals, and punctuation marks, would not be more likely to attract readers. "Poetry requires that the reader should be in training for it-keyed to it. For that reason, probably, people read prose; it is so much easier and human nature has a loveable tendency to slackness."

Mr. Brennan readily satisfied my curiosity on other points. He was an entertaining talker.

"I'm afraid I am very unpatriotic." he said. "I've written nothing about the horse or the swagsman. As far as 'national' traits go, I might have made my verses in China.

"I know nothing of 'poetic pains.' Writing poetry is a job like any other. One of the essentials to writing real poetry is to put in three or four hours at the desk every day. The popular idea about dashing off a poem in a fine frenzy is but an amusing piece of credulousness on the part of the public. Poets themselves have encouraged this idea ever since they began to write. They are beginning to see, however, that 'inspiration' is not enough, that a good deal of thought and self criticism is also required.

"Some people say I have not the afflatus, that I have made myself write poetry. I am prepared to agree with that to a certain extent. Poetry and criticism are two ways of getting a lot of fun out of life. Any man with a certain amount of literary ability may now and then produce a set of polished verses which it might be difficult to distinguish from real poetry.

In New South Wales we have produced a certain amount of poetry. There are achievements in verse to the credit of Kendall and Daley, and in this particular sphere good work is being done at the present time by Mr. Roderic Quinn and Mr. Brereton.

The great poet has not arrived yet, but Australia will welcome him-when he is dead, probably.

The ideal Australian poet will be a man of genius, possessing abundant wealth, with strict guardians to regulate his mode of living, and occasionally to lock him in a room supplied with writing materials."

TWO BEST SELLERS.

Of the fourteen writers featured in my "Sydney Mall" article (which ran to three pages), Patterson, Roderic Quinn, John Sandes, E. J. Brady, Colonel Kenneth Mackay, Hugh McCrae, and Miss Ethel Turner (Mrs. Curlewis) are still with us; the others, Henry Lawson, Brennan, Brereton, Arthur Adams, P. E. Quinn, T. W. Heney, and Miss Agnes Storrle (Mrs. Kettlewell) have joined the great fraternity of poets in the shades.

Mr. Patterson, who had just retired from the daily grind of a city newspaper office to his native bush, asked to be excused from inclusion in a "personal detail" article. "I have a great objection to the personal element being dragged into literature," he wrote. "The best poetry as a rule was written by men who were bad characters, and I do not think it concerns the public at all how or why a man writes." On the principle that the play of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark would be no play at all, I had to make shift without any help from the most popular of our bards.

Henry Lawson was the most elusive man I ever tried to catch up with. I had followed his trail for a couple of weeks when a note left at one of his haunts brought to the "Herald" letter-box "An Answer," written in pencil on the back of an advertisement form. "Dear Quinn," it ran, '"I could meet you and tell you the same old piffle (rot), or you could write an interview without meeting me at all. But if I told you the truth the paper would not dare print it if you dared to write it. I'll tell you something worth while later on."   Encouraged by this "answer," I redoubled my exertions to get into personal touch. When at last I did run him to ground he could do no more than sing me snatches of song and shuffle his feet to a dancing measure. With his pinched features and tall spare frame, he seemed to me a tragic figure. There was a time when the author of "In the Days When the World Was Wide" had the world at his feet. But Fortune is a fickle jade, and much prefers a lover to a master.

HAS POETRY A FUTURE?

Overshadowed by his younger brother Roderic, P. E. Quinn was content to play the role of critic rather than of poet. It was his belief that the days of the poets were numbered. "The race" he said "is losing its singing power not that it lacks the qualifications of art and expression, but because the impulses that made great poetry are not to be looked for now." To his mind science was taking the place of poetry in satisfying the imaginative needs of man. The poet had no special message now. As Macaulay predicted poetry was declining with the advance of civilisation. A world movement in the direction of humanitarianism was manifesting itself and its needs would be satisfied by legislation. Poetry might retain its place among the arts, and that which was transcript of the emotions of the romantic period in the life of individuals might always be appreciated, but as the expression of the spirit of the age poetry would lose its significance. Of course, no one could foresee what tricks fortune might play upon us. Here in Australia we might experience some national crisis or discipline which would act as an incentive to national poetry. Nobody could tell.

Roderic Quinn did not share his brother's outlook. Despite Macaulay's dictum, despite the fact that we had weighed the sun and discovered a new planet, he was confident that world interest in poetical productions would remain as steadfast as ever. The more science discovered the broader would be the base whereon man would build his temple of imagination.

Whether Roderic will outshine his brother P.E. as a seer only time will show. What appears to be unquestionable at the moment is that poetry readers are dwindling in number. Publishers go as far as to say that "Poetry is dead."

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 December 1936

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

Discussion of Christopher Brennan, Part 3

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The following is the third of a three-part discussion of the works of Christopher Brennan that took place in the pages of The Sydney Morning Herald during 1936.  It began with a report of a lecture by Hilary Lofting, and continued with an essay by John Sandes on the merits, or otherwise, of Brennan's poetry.

CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.  

Sir,-In last Saturday's issue, under the heading "Literary Misapprehension," Mr. John Sandes says: "Mrs. Mary Gilmore wrote in a letter to the Editor of the 'Herald': "The desire to see Christopher Brennan published in enduring form is equally a desire to see Australians stand face to face among the writers of the world." Then he adds, "It may surprise Mrs. Mary Gilmore to learn that Chris. Brennan's poetical work, or, at any rate, a large part of it, was published by subscription in Sydney."

May I reply that it is no surprise to me, as I bought several copies of this collection, as well as of the smaller book. But these are but a portion of his work, and it was to a complete edition of all he did that I referred, and because no partial collection can give him the standing in Europe that his scholarship should command. Mr. Sandes in his article does not mention either Brennan's published prose or his lectures -- which even in notes were literature. It was in the desire to see all this published that I wrote the letter referred to by Mr. Sandes; and this Is, I am told, the aim of the executors. I have been told that the volume in contemplation will be about four times as large as the (sectional) one that was published by subscription.

I am, etc.,

MARY GILMORE.

King's Cross. Sept. 7.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 September 1936


CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.

Sir,-Mrs. Mary Gllmore's letter in your issue of September 10 covers the ground in relation to the partial collection of Brennan's poetry mentioned in Mr. John Sandes's intensely interesting article. May I, as the lecturer from whose words this discussion sprang, add that I also have known this partial collection for many years, that I, in fact, read my excerpts from it at the fellowship address in question?

The theme of that address was that a "complete" collection of the work of an Australian major poet should be made available before its absence becomes a present reproach and a future loss to Australian Imagination and scholarship.

I am, etc.,

HILARY LOFTING. Sydney, Sept. 12.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September 1936


HOMAGE TO BRENNAN.    

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.  

Sir,-There has been much wild talk and there has been much lip service about Australia's greatest poet. We think that those of our readers who were friends of Brennan in his life, and the still larger number to whom he is an honoured name, will be glad to realise that there is no call for lamentation over the prospective loss of his work.

Brennan, before his death, had the insight to make one of his dearest and loyalest friends, R. Innes Kay, his literary executor, and Mr. Kay's loyal and thorough stewardship has prevented any ill-judged, sporadic, and inaccurate publication of Brennan's work, and has prepared the public for the edition of the forthcoming Brennan omnibus. The editing of this omnibus will be in the hands of a committee, Messrs. R. Innes Kay, J. J. Quinn, and C. H. Kaeppel, with Miss Kate Egan, treasurer, and Miss K. Donovan, secretary, It will include every surviving thing that Brennan has written, with the possible exception of his lectures on the Homeric question and his compositions in German, which have now only an antiquarian interest. The omnibus would have appeared long since, but for the difficulty in securing a small portion (not more than ten per cent.) of Brennan's work that was in the hands of others. But the committee felt, and rightly, that the omnibus should be definitive.

There is another matter to which with great happiness we refer. All lovers of Brennan's work have noted the irresistible songfulness of some of his lyrics. No one has noticed it better than Mr. Horace Keats. It has been our privilege to hear his first scores of "The Wanderer" cycle. Properly to appraise them, would, we think, take a Strangways. We would only say we recall the singing fairy of "Midsummer Night's Dream," and, that hearing them, we heard the fusion of two artists-the poet and the musician. That these gems of art will be heard in England and America it is good to know, but we may be acquitted of any parochialism if we are avowedly glad that they will be heard first in Australia -- at the forthcoming series of lectures on Brennan, all of which will conclude with selections from the Wanderer cycle, played by Mr. Keats and sung by his gifted wife, so well known by her platform name, Miss Barbara Russell.

I am, etc.,

KATHLEEN DONOVAN.

Hon. secretary, Chris Brennan Committee.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 September 1936

Note: this last letter was originally published on this weblog on 6 April 2011.  I've reprinted it here as it fits the rest of the discussion.

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

Discussion of Christopher Brennan, Part 2

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The following is the second of a three-part discussion of the works of Christopher Brennan that took place in the pages of The Sydney Morning Herald during 1936.  It began with a report of a lecture by Hilary Lofting, and will conclude next week with letters to the paper in reply to the essay below.

BRENNAN'S POEMS.

A Literary Misapprehension.

(BY JOHN SANDES.)

Mr. Hilary Lofting, in addressing the Fellowship of Australian Writers on July 15 on the poetry of the late Chris. Brennan, stated, according to the report in the "Herald" next morning, that "there is no published collection of his works." Mrs. Mary Gilmore, who is herself a well-known authoress, in referring to the statement by Mr. Lofting, wrote in a letter to the Editor of the "Herald". "The desire to see Christopher Brennan published in enduring form is equally a desire to see Australians stand face to face among the writers of the world." It may surprise the lecturer, and also Mrs. Mary Gilmore, as well as the reading public in general, to learn that Chris. Brennan's poetical work, or, at any rate, a large part of it, was published by subscription in Sydney, shortly before the war, by G. B. Philip and Son, Pitt-street. A few copies of it are still available at the publishers' well-known bookshop.

Turning over a mass of old letters and papers recently, this present writer came across a cutting from a Sydney morning newspaper. The cutting was printed early in the fateful year 1914. The journal itself has since passed away, or, perhaps, it might be more truthfully said of it, in the words of another great poet, that it

    " . . . has suffered a sea-change into something rich and strange."

The cutting contained a review article entitled "Three Poets," "An Appreciation." It dealt with "Poems" by Christopher Brennan, The Witch Maid" by Dorothea Mackellar, and "The Three Kings" by Will Lawson. The reviewer, in introducing the three, remarked that "they had little in common except for the share that each of them manifested in those inborn qualities of sympathy, reflection, intuition, depth of feeling, sensitiveness to beauty, and gift of expression, which help to make the poet as distinct from the verse-writer." He went on to observe that the poetical works of the three poets were "as dissimilar from each other as a Tschalkowsky symphony, a group of Schubert's "Lieder," and a collection of Sousa's marches -- but they all have poetry in them."

WARM EULOGY.

There is no lack of enthusiasm for Chris. Brennan's poetical merits in the review. "Mr, Chris. Brennan's large and handsomely-produced volume," we read, "brings together a mass of poetic work the composition of which has extended over many years. The author has long since established his claim to be recognised as a writer of marked originality, whose deep thought is set forth in an ornate diction, jewelled with far-sought words and phrases, that not seldom dazzle the reader so thoroughly that it is difficult to make out the outline of the idea under the rich and glittering dress in which it is presented. Mr. Chris. Brennan's poetry is not easy reading. His appeal is to the lettered few. Not at the first, or even at the second, reading will the line and mass of his thought emerge from his verse, but gradually there dawns on one an impression that this poet's plummet goes down to the profundities -- that he takes soundings in a mighty ocean where the purely lyric poets never venture. A huge discontent with the present ways of living looms up with menace. One might say that the Celtic temperament of the poet has -- blended with it -- something of the old Hebraic denunciatory fire."

That Judgment seems to be in general agreement with the opinion of Mr. Hilary Lofting that "one had almost to study Brennan's verse before one could like it." The reviewer, however, goes on to show that the poet is not always obscure and also that at times Chris. Brennan wrote not only with Hebraic fire, but also with the prophetic gift of one of those old Hebrew seers. Take, for instance, those typically Brennanesque verses ending with a prophecy the fulfilment of which at the present time, more than twenty-two years after the critique was printed, appears -- not only to the members of the Rositrucian Order at Perth, who are bent on building an asbestos tower from which to view the conflagration, but also to many millions of other people -- to be dismally imminent.

The first line of the first verse shows that the piece was written in the poet's youth. Here are the verses, sombre and powerful in thought, vividly clear in expression, assuredly indicating "a huge discontent with the present ways of living":

   The yellow gas is fired from street to street,
      Past rows of heartless homes and hearts unlit,
   Dead churches, and the unending pavement beat
      By crowds -- say, rather, haggard shades that flit.

   Round nightly haunts of their delusive dream,
      Where'er our paradisal instinct starves,
   Till on the utmost post its sinuous gleam
      Crawls on the oily water of the wharves.  

   Where Homer's sea loses his keen breath, hemmed
      What place rebellious piles were driven down --
   The priest-like waters to this task condemned
      To wash the roots of the inhuman town!

   Where fat and strange-eyed fish that never saw
      The outer deep, broad halls of sapphire light,
   Glut in the city's draught each namelss maw --
      And there wide-eyed unto the soulless night.

   Methinks a drown'd maid's face might fitly show
      What we have slain, a life that had been free,
   Clean, large nor thus tormented-even so,
      As are the skies, the salt winds and the sea.

   Shall we be cleansed, and how? I only pray
      Red flame or deluge may that end be soon.

That last line stands out stark and grim at the present crisis in the history of civilisation.

The reviewer in his notice comments: "Unlike a great deal of the poetry in this volume, that passage is perfectly straightforward. And it opens vistas. It grips the mind." That cannot be denied. But it is the grip of horror, not of pity. How differently Tom Hood has treated the same "motif" in those lines that begin

   Take her up tenderly,
      Lift her with care.
   Fashioned so slenderly,
      Young, and so fair.

"THE WANDERER."

The reviewer reports that there are four long poems in Chris. Brennan's book, the parts of each being loosely connected together by a central idea epitomised in the title. Also there is a set of epilogues. He picks out specially "The Wanderer," because, he says, in it the central thought is clearer, as well as nobler than in the others, while the diction is at the same time less heavily loaded with illusion and more apt in helping the reader to comprehend the complex of scenes, ideas, and emotions, that the author conjures up. "Yet even this poem," he says, must be read again and again before its full meaning beats into the mind. The reflections of an old man with a lifetime of memories behind him -- memories of wife and child long dead, memories of hunger and cold, and everlasting struggle -- arouse clear-cut mental pictures, and the poignant sympathy that is, in fact, a shivering realisation that what the poet describes may be the lot of any one of us some day." Then he adds: "Yet one has sudden glimpses of a new outlook'" and he quotes these lines from "The Wanderer":

   You at whose table I have sat, some distant eve,
   Beside the road, and eaten, and you pitied me,
   To be driven an aimless way before the pitiless winds;
   How much ye have give, and knew not, pitying foolishly!
   For not alone the bread I broke but I tasted, too.
   And you unwitting live, and knew the narrow soul
   That bodies it, in the landmarks of your fields,
   And broods dumbly, within your little season's round
   Where after sowing comes the short-lived summer's mirth.

   And after harvesting the winter's lingering dream,
   Half memory and regret, half hope crouching beside
   The hearth that is" your only centre of life and dream;
   And, knowing the world how limitless and the way how long
   And the home of man how feeble and built on the winds;
   I have lived your life, that eve, as you might never live,
   Knowing and pity you if you should come to know.

Here is the reviewer's summing-up of the poet's message: "That passage conveys the impression somehow that one has been living in a narrow box and that the bottom has suddenly dropped out of it, precipitating one that the immensities. We find in this poem that profound dissatisfaction with life as it is today, which is the moving spirit of all evolutionary progress, and also a noble craving to fight againnst the powers of evil. There is no happiness in inertia. Energy for the strenuous upward climbing, and courage for the combat -- these are the themes of Mr. Brennan's muse."  

Within the past few days this present writer held in his hand, in the publishers' bookshop, one of the large handsomely produced volumes of Chris. Brennan's "Poems" referred to in the old, faded, yellowing "appreciation." It awakened poignant memories. It is the same book, but it was not the identical copy of it that was received two and twenty years ago, "With the compliments of the publisher -- For Review."

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 September 1936

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

Discussion of Christopher Brennan, Part 1

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The following is the start of a three-part discussion of the works of Christopher Brennan that took place in the pages of The Sydney Morning Herald during 1936.  It begins with a report of a lecture by Hilary Lofting, a Sydney journalist and brother of Hugh Lofting (author of the Dr Doolittle books), about the Australian poet Christopher Brennan (1870-1932).

"Only Major Poet": Christopher Brennan

"Christopher Brennan is our one major poet, and there is no published collection of his works. It is a standing disgrace."

This statement was made by Mr. Hilary Lofting, the author, at a meeting of the fellowship of Australian Writers at the Shallmar Cafe last night, when he pleaded for recognition of the poetical talents of the late Christopher Brennan.

Mr. Lofting said that Brennan had been a member of his household during one of the last years of the poet's life. One had almost to study Brennan's work before one could like it.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 July 1936

And in response:

Christopher Brennan: To the Editor of the Herald.

Sir,-In his address to the Fellowship of Australian Writers, Mr. Hilary Lofting said: "One had almost to study Brennan, work before one liked it." Then, striking a comparison, he offered the supplementary remark that it needed three hundred years of Shakespeare to be liked. A quip, droll enough to have made old Chris shake his sides, if he had been there to hear it.

Later on in the evening, Mr. Lofting specified it as being "our job to read and know Brennan . . . " a splendid idea for those who can spare themselves "that time which never can return." But, "extra jocum," one cannot govern taste; because no man considers rightly who is unable to think for himself. Moreover, genius owes nothing to testimony; or, if it does, we might subscribe to a new maxim, "Poeta fit non nascitur." In the present case it seems certain that Brennan will come to his fame with a merry wind. During the period of his life, he was a very dear and lovable man; one who, in the words of Edward Gibbon, "multiplied his own experience by reading and reflection, and lived in distant ages and remote countries."

I am etc.

HUGH MCCRAE.

Camden, July 17.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 July 1936

And then:

Christopher Brennan and Fame

Sir, - In regard to his letter in this morning's paper, there is no one more capable of assessing the place of Christopher Brennan, either personally or in his prose and poetry, than Hugh McCrae, and it is always a delight when he writes of anyone. But may I seem to differ and yet go further than Mr. McCrae, and say that perpetuity rests, not on genius, but on rag paper? Genius dies, books perish, but rag endures. Because of this I last week formulated a proposal to the Fellowship of Australian Writers that it initiate a movement for a subscription rag-paper edition of Brennan's complete works. Perhaps there might be a conference arranged of heads of all the bodies interested in scholarship, art, and literature, so that something universal could be done. Brennan was a scholar as well as a writer, and art should be represented in all our commemorating and perpetuating books.

I am, etc.,

MARY GILMORE

King's Cross, July 20

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 July 1936

Followed by:

Chris Brennan.

Sir, - The recently published remarks of Mr. Hilary Lofting as to Chris. Brennan and the subsequent correspondence appearing in your columns are very encouraging. They give, not more heart -- for it is a labour of love for the man as much as his work - but more promise to the writer and Mr. J. J. Quinn in their joint labour already well advanced, of the publication next year of as complete an edition of Chris's prose and verse as the reluctance of some who survive him to produce his books and manuscripts will permit. It is hoped soon to give your correspondents and others interested in the publication of Chris's works an opportunity of displaying that interest in a practical manner. Every time I read in the Press enthusiasms from admirers of Brennan's verse, I am reminded of an occasion when Chris's intellectual attainments being exclusively in eulogy, the late A. G. Stephens stamped angrily about the grass saying, "Why doesn't somebody say what a lovable man he was?" We shook hands. In conclusion, may I ask for leave, publicly, to thank Mr. Hugh McCrae for his letter.

I am. etc.,

CHRIS'S EXECUTOR.

Sydney, July 24.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 July 1936

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

Note: This discussion will continue on Friday with a long reply by John Sandes

Reprint: Authorship: Local Discouragements by Arthur H. Adams

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Everybody knows "Punch's" famous advice to those contemplating matrimony, "Don't!"  

The same curt reply must be made in all sincerity to those who are contemplating entering the bonds of Australian authorship. Marriage without means is everywhere regarded as a foolish proceeding, fraught with the probability of disaster. So it is with Australian authorship. Yet there are, strange to say, practising authors in Australia. The itch for writing may explain this paradox; for the real author would write at the North Pole for the pleasure of expressing himself, even if he knew that no eye, save that of a seal, would ever glance at his pages. Australia is a poor country for authorship; and in the arts literature has been, and probably will be, the poor relation of genius. It is true that a subsistence can be made; but it is doubtful whether any writer in this continent has achieved even a modest competence from the sole product of his typewriter. The earnings of the most important profession, that of letters, are meagre and intermittent; and, what is just as important, the writing profession is looked down upon by all worthy citizens. So low down in the scale of importance is the author in Australia that in the honours conferred by the King I cannot remember even an O.B.E. that has been gazetted to an Australian author, unless, of course, he his gained that honour outside   of Australia. No Nobel literary award has ever reached this country.  

THE HELP OF JOURNALISM.  

What authorship we have in this continent is due to the help of journalism or publicity work; and I know only two poets who are able to publish their works as they should be published. The plight of our authentic Australian authors is too well known to need particularising; our poets die in poverty or are kept alive by the kindness of friends or of the State. Yet our poets are the most important people in the six millions of our inhabitants; they are the voices of Australia; and their songs are the most vital things In our lives. By our poets and our novelists shall we be judged by posterity; and our anthologies will remain immortal while mere prosperous citizens will be forgotten.

One fine thing for which the Director of Education of this State is to be lauded, is the insertion in the school books of our education system of the poems of this land of ours. No longer are the school children taught "The boy stood on the burning deck," but the finest poems in the Australian language. And it is my belief that as these children grow up they will hand down to their children the fine things produced by our poets for eternity. Recently I was asked by a Western Australian blind institute for some of my poems and those of other Australian bards to be translated into the newer Braille type. Hitherto only English verses had been included in the library for the blind.

In order to exist as an author it is necessary to call in the aid of extraneous help. Journalism is the crutch by which most of us manage to exist; and judicially used it is a valuable help. But usually the poet finds that poetry (in Australia) does not pay; and who can fault him when he marries and has to keep a family? The goal is a distant one for the poet or the novelist and the best he can look forward to is a modest competence, though so far I have not found a single poet who has earned enough to retire upon his exiguous gains from Australian literature. The rest of us have to stick to journalism.

ANYTHING BUT AUSTRALIA.

There is one important disability that affects all Australian authors, a handicap that is not observable in other English-speaking countries. This is the inherent prejudice of our reading public against Australian novels. The reason is that the reader does not really want to read about his own country. The English novelist is sure of an audience when he writes about England, and similarly the American novelist. Those oversea novelists have not to range the globe to obtain acceptance by the publishers; the majority of English and American authors can set their scene in their own land. The Australian reader prefers the wild west of America to our equally interesting wild west of Australia. There is something exotic in big, broad- brimmed hats of the cowboy that the Australian lacks in the slouch-hat; the stockwhip is a less romantic weapon than the six-shooter. We regard our own country as a dull field for fiction, thought that prejudice is happily dying out. There is, naturally, no romance in the Australian country town or the selection, no romance for us who live in those places; though, of course, romance is everywhere and more so in Australia than in Texas. If an average reader were offered the choice of a novel set in Bourke or one in Piccadilly, the London novel would be chosen. We think we know all about Bourke, perhaps because the right interpreter of Bourke has not yet been born.

Another prejudice that must be killed to give the Australian author his chance is the fact that we meet our local authors and know them too well. Most of them are engaged in journalism; none of them are well off. How can a reporter on a newspaper produce a work of genius? I know no Australian novelist who can afford even a Ford. The Autralian author remains permanently within the employee class, with a few exceptions.

The Australian author has not only to produce readable novels of his own country, but he has to meet a very stern competition against the flood of imported novels. He needs a tariff preference against the imports from America and England. One does not want a high tariff against imported novels, but there should be some arrangement, such as that suggested in regard to the film releases, a percentage of Australian works to be displayed on the booksellers' counters, among the imported fiction. Yet books cannot be bought as boots are. If the Australian reader does not want to read the books of his own country, heaven help us; and that is the only place whence help can come.

As for publishing Australian books in London, there is one important draw-back, the British income tax. I have suffered severely from that impost. I have for many years paid three income taxes, and the British impost is not light. So serious is the aspect that I have told my London literary agents to stop the impending publication of a cheap edition of two or my books; the small profit I would expect is not worth it. The British income tax would swallow my small earnings.  

Yet we novelists and poets go on; we cannot help ourselves.  

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 September 1927

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

Reprint: "Tussock Land"

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Under the not very attractive title of "Tussock Land: a romance of New Zealand and the Commonwealth" (T. Fisher Unwin), Mr. Arthur H. Adams tells a story of some note. His hero is one King Southern, a youth with artistic feelings and ambitions, with a love for beautiful things, and with a desire to do beautiful things, with an ambition that is strong enough to urge him to scorn delights and live laborious days -- with, in short, all the qualifications of a genius, except the power of expressing genius. King Southern has also an infinite capacity of loving. The only person he does not love is his father, who is dimly represented as an austere person with direct and narrow views. King Southern loves his mother, but his love is not so strong as to prevent the possibility of his neglecting her for years on end. He loves every beautiful girl he knows in New Zeaiand. Slenderly equipped in point of education, he leaves New Zealand en route for Paris, via Sydney. He is first to educate Sydney -- a mission popular, we are led to believe, in New Zealand. He is to acquire all knowledge attainable in Sydney, leaving in return some serviceable information, and then he is to go on to the old country and electrify artists there, and to do great work himself. The only part of this journey which he effects is the visit to Sydney. Here he works like a man and falls as an artist. He finds after long trial that the pith of the artist is not in him; that he can daub a little and play the dilettante a little, but that not to him belongs the power of making the canvas speak poetry. The daily papers of Sydney, it appears, wisely encourage him to believe that he is a failure, and this verdict, demonstrably correct, is at last accepted by him. Accordingly he goes back to New Zealand and becomes a successful lawyer in the bush. The book is agreeably and cleverly written. It is in some places intensely human, not merely local. It presents a vivid sketch of a not uncommon character -- the youth who starts out to conquer tho world, and who returns home convinced of his own weakness.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 June 1904

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

It has been suggested to me by a well known collector of Australian letters that my recollections of my father, Charles Harpur, the poet, would be of interest to many. I have a very good memory, and events that took place when I must have been very young stand out clearly in my mind. As I was not seven years old when my father died, part of what I shall put down has been told to me by my mother and others.

When we were children we were never tired of listening to my mother telling us stirring incidents that happened on the Araluen goldfield in the days of its prosperity. Among other things my mother told us was that my father, as gold commissioner, was treated like a prince by the hundreds of gold-diggers on the field at the time; also, that his word was law in all things -- there could be no appeal against his ruling. He must have been wise and just, as my mother said there was very little real trouble among the gold-diggers at the time.

MOVED TO NERRIGUNDAH

When Araluen was on the wane, my father was transferred to Nerrigundah goldfield -- it was always called "The Gulf" in those days. My father had to go and take up his duties at "The Gulf" but my mother remained at Araluen with her children until he had made a home for us. He selected about 500 acres of land on the banks of the Tuross River at Eurobodalla, and called the property Euroma, which I believe, is a black's name. He had a comfortable house built, and a garden and orchard laid out and planted. As the result of my father's forethought, we had a lovely garden and a fine orchard in bearing long before there was another in the district.

I must tell how we had to travel from Araluen to Eurobodalla, about 75 miles -- nothing in these days, but an awful journey at that time. My mother said the road was little better than a rough bridle track. Only saddle and pack horses could be used. There was quite a party of us, consisting of my father and mother, my brothers, Washington and Charley, our nurse Bella (who had been with mother for years), and Mr. Glover, a young man that my father was taking with him to manage and farm the land at Eurobodalla. All of them were riding. There were two or three pack horses. One which Mr. Glover was leading had two Chinese baskets slung across its back. In one was my sister Ada, who was about four years old and in the other my brother Harold, about six years old. I (the writer) being at that time one year and six months old was carried by my father in front of him all the way to Moruya, our first stopping place. A few miles out of Moruya we were met by Mr. Caswell, the police magistrate and his wife, at whose house we spent the night. The next day we continued our journey to our new home. My mother said she was delighted with it as she never expected anything so nice in such a short time.

THE CLARK GANG

There was great excitement in the district shortly after this. The Clark gang of bushrangers was reported to be in the hills, and would be sure to stick up "The Gulf" as there was a large amount of gold on hand just then. Most of the storekeepers and hotelkeepers were gold buyers. My mother and servants gathered up their money and valuables, and my mother and Bella hid them in the garden. Mr Glover brought his wife up to our place for the night, so he could look after us all. My brothers were melting lead and making bullets and talking excitedly about the brave things they were going to do if the bushrangers came. Quite a number of men had mustered at our place to proceed to "The Gulf" to help to protect it against the bushrangers. At that time it was nine miles from Eurobodalla to "The Gulf," over a rough track winding around the mountains. Years after a road was made over the mountains, which shortened the distance between the two places to six miles.

The party of horsemen could only ride at a slow pace, so it was after dark before they arrived at "The Gulf". The bushrangers had already attacked Nerrigundah, and had shot a young policeman named O'Grady dead. A stone monument to Constable O'Grady's memory was erected near the old police station. The leader of the gang, Tommy Clark, went into the store of Pollock, one of the largest gold buyers, and demanded the key of the gold safe. Mrs Pollock had it in her hand at the lime, but instead of giving it to him she threw it out into the dark street, saying, "Go and find it." I believe that as he raised his gun angrily she said, "Would you be coward enough to shoot a woman?" Just then my father's party and other men arrived, and they drove the bushrangers to the hills again before they had time to get the haul of gold they expected. My father and a number of others followed them all that night, exchanging shots with the bushrangers several times, but the country was so wild and mountainous that they lost them before daylight. However, the bushrangers never appeared in the district again.

FAMILY SORROWS.

The first great trouble came into my father and mother's lives not long after this. My brothers, Washington and Charlie, were out duck shooting with a number of other boys. When they were about to return home, Charlie, who waa only 13 years old, stood on a log to mount his horse, and pulled his gun up after him. It went off, and shot him through the heart. I have never forgotten that dreadful evening. Even now, when I think of it, I can see my brother Washington galloping wildly home, screaming "Charlie's shot! Charlie's shot!" Washington was only a young boy, and the awful shock at seeing the brother he loved so dearly, dead in a minute before his eyes almost unbalanced his mind for the time. From this   time, my father was a changed man. Instead of being kindly and loving, he became stern and silent, and as children do not understand grief we grew to be rather in awe of him. I have often wondered since if we had had the courage then to let him know how we missed his loving ways, would he have thrown his brooding sorrow off a little for our sakes.

My mother has told me that my father was not unduly worried by the office of gold commissioner being abolished, as Sir John Robertson had assured him that as soon as his health was restored he would receive an appointment as police magistrate, and Sir John was always a man of his word. Unfortunately my father's health did not improve, and was now causing a great deal of anxiety. He had to take frequent journeys to Sydney, often accompanied by my mother, to see his doctors.  

Soon he became too ill to go anywhere. I can remember clearly the night he died. My brother and sister and myself were taken out of our beds by our nurse, Bella, and, going into my father's room each of us kissed him. I can see my mother standing at the head of the bed on which my father lay, but I think what impressed itself most on my memory was seeing Mr. Glover kneeling at the foot of the bed sobbing bitterly. I stood on a chair with Bella's arms around me, and she was saying over and over again: "Oh, the poor fatherless darlings."

Most who have written about my father's life seem to imply that he was most improvident, and a poor business man. No man could leave a fortune behind him on a salary of eight or nine hundred a year. My father left no debts, an unencumbered farm, a well- furnished, comfortable home, which I am sure was much better than most would have done on the same salary, although he was a poet.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 August 1929

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

Reprint: "Poems" by Charles Harpur

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We are glad to see the works of the late Charles Harpur rescued from their fugitive and disconnected state of existence, and given a fair chance of long life by being collected in a substantial and presentable volume. Those who now read his works for the first time will be surprised that a man who had advanced so far in the path of lyrical achievement should be so little known, and so seldom referred to. Considering the outcry that is so often made against Australian poets, on the ground that their work is simply English poetry transplanted; that it lacks the voice, colour, and flavour of Australia, and that it might as well have been written anywhere else, for aught of characteristic spirit it has absorbed from its surroundings; it is, indeed, surprising that this writer, who fulfilled just such requirements as are desiderated in such strictures; who was, in truth, all compact of the very essence of his environment; is not more fondly cherished and more proudly pointed to as a genuine representative of Au tralian song. Our reading public may at least rely upon this, that the future historian of Au tralian literature will take large account of Charles Harpur as one of the true pioneers of poetry on this continent; not merely treading in other men's paths, but impelled by his own inward force to traverse new regions, with no guide but his own spontaneous muse. It has been remarked by critics that Harpur lacks smoothness, and it is impossible to deny that almost any man of culture and versatile talent could take many of his verses and "lick them into shape." But we question very much whether they would gain anything by the polishing process. In many passages there is something pleasingly sturdy in the very uncouthness of the mode of expression. There is not a page in all the book, however bristling with discords, in which the highly developed poetic temperament does not overcome the obstacles of speech through sheer force of earnestness, and through a communicative vividness of imagination that compels the reader to feel that he is under the sway of a genuine master. It has been said, in excuse for the roughness of his speech, that

   All of his aptest years were passed
   In primal solitudes wild and vast;

but it seems to us that this rather supplies the clue to his excellence than the excuse for his defect. In no other school could he have acquired such capacity of observation, such mastery of nature in all her moods, or such an intenseness of what we can only call "insight," which is the most authentic mark of the true poetical genius. In what other school could he have learned to use such an expression as we have italicised in the following quotation?--

   Instinctively, along the sultry sky
   I turn a listless, yet inquiring, eye;
   And mark that now with a slow, gradual, pace
   A solemn trance creams northward o'er its face.

What other mode of culture could have given him the power to conjure words into vehement noonday heat? as when he writes--

   For round each crag, and o'er each bosky swell,
   The fierce refracted heat flares visible,
   Lambently restless, like the dazzling horn
   Of some else viewless veil held trembling over them.

In what book could he have learned to note and so to express one of the signs of a coming storm? as thus--

   Why cease the locusts to throng up in flight,
   And clap their gay wings in the fervent light?
   Why climb they, bodingly demure, instead
   The tallest spear-grass to the bending head?

What university curriculum could have enabled him to improve upon such a passage as this from his "Address to the Comet of 1843?"--

            And when the flaming steps
   Of thy unspeakable speed, which of itself
   Blows back the long strands of thy burning hair
   Through half the arch of night
, shall lead thee forth
   Into the dim of the inane, beyond
   Our utmost vision; all the eloquent eyes
   Now open wide with welcome and with wonder --
   Eyes tender as the turtle's, or that speak
   The fervent soul and the majestic mind;
   All these, alas ! --- all these, ere thou once more
   Shalt drive thus fulgently around the sun
   Thy chariot of fire, fast closed in dust
   And mortal darkness, shall have given for aye
   Their lustre to the grave.

We regret that we have not space for extended criticism, or for such sufficiency of quotation as might enable us to justify our estimate of the book. We heartily commend it to all lovers of Australian literature, and as heartily join the aspiration which concludes Mrs. Harpur's pathetic dedication of her late husband's work to the Australian people--that it may "be found not unworthy to take a place in the literature of every English-speaking community."

First published in The Queenslander, 13 October 1883

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

Reprint: "Angry Penguins" Will be Angrier: Hoaxers Scored

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Last week "The Mail" told the story of Ern Malley, the poet "discovered" by Mr. Max Harris, and introduced to the literary public in 30 pages of the "Angry Penguins."

This week it can be told that the Ern Malley poems were one afternoon's work for two Sydney University graduates, now in the Army, who set out to debunk pretentious modern poetry because, they say, "its devotees are insensible of absurdity and incapable of ordinary discrimination."

How the works of Ern Malley were deliberately concocted without intention of poetic meaning or merit was told by their authors to "Fact," a section of the supplement to the Sydney "Sunday Sun."

The Malley writings were published in a special "Ern Malley" commemorative issue of the Ade- laide literary journal, "Angry Penguins," which ranked the fictitious Ern Malley as "one of the two giants of contemporary Australian poetry," and devoted 30 pages to an allegedly posthumous poet who had never lived.

The "works of Ern Malley," were written in collaboration by two Australian poets, James McAuley and Harold Stewart.

Stewart, who lived at Croydon, New South Wales, is a corporal at present in a military hospital. He is 27.

Lieutenant McAuley, A.I.F., lived at Homebush. He is 26.

Both are from Sydney, where they were educated at Fort Street High School, and attended Sydney University. They are attached to the same Army unit stationed at Melbourne.

The identity of Ern Malley and the merits attributed to the writings under that name provoked Australia's most remarkable literary controversy.

Co-authors McAuley and Stewart this week made the following joint statement and explanation. "We decided to carry out a serious literary experiment. There was no feeling of personal malice directed against Mr. Max Harris, co-editor of "Angry Penguins."

"Nor was there any intention of having the matter publicised in the press.

"For some years now we have observed with distaste the gradual decay of meaning and craftsmanship in poetry.

"Mr. Max Harris and other 'Angry Penguin' writers represent an Australian outcrop of a literary fashion which has become prominent in England and America.

"A distinctive feature of the fashion, it seemed to us, was that it rendered its devotees insensible of absurdity and incapable of ordinary discrimination.

"Our feeling was that by processes of critical self-delusion and mutual admiration, the perpetrators of this humorless nonsense had managed to pass it off on would-be 'intellectuals' and 'Bohemians' here and abroad as great poetry.

"Their work appeared to us to be a collection of garish images without coherent meaning and structure, as if one erected a coat of bright paint and called it a house.

Testing a Theory

"However, it was possible that we had simply failed to penetrate to the inward substance of these productions. The only way of settling the matter was by experiment.

"It was, after all, fair enough. If Mr. Harris proved to have sufficient discrimination to reject the poems, then the tables would have been turned.

"What we wished to find out was, can those who write and those who praise so lavishly this kind of writing tell the real product from consciously and deliberately concocted nonsense?

"It was our contention, which we desired to prove by this experiment, that they could not.

"We gave birth to 'Ern Malley.' We represented Ern through his equally fictitious sister, 'Ethel Malley,' as having been a garage mechanic and an insurance salesman who wrote but never pub- lished the 'poems,' found after his tragic end at the age of 25 by his sister, who sent them to 'Angry Penguins' for opinion.  

"We produced the whole of Ern Malley's tragic life work in one afternoon with the aid of a chance collection of books which happened to be on our desk -- the Concise Oxford Dictionary, collected Shakespeare, dictionary of quotations, etc.

"We opened books at random, choosing a word or phrase haphazardly.

"We made lists of these and wove them into nonsensical sentences.

"We misquoted and made false allusions. We deliberately perpetrated bad verse and selected awkward rhymes from Ripman's rhyming dictionary.

"In parts we even abandoned metre altogether and made free verse cacaphonous. Our rules of composition were not difficult --

"1. There most be no coherent theme, at most only confused and inconsistent hints at meaning held out as a bait to the rader.

"2. No care was taken with verse technique except occasionally to accentuate its general sloppiness by deliberate crudities.

"3. In style, poems were to imitate not Mr. Harris in particular but the whole literary fashion as we knew it.

"Having completed the poems, we wrote a very pretentious and meaningless 'preface and statement' which purported to explain the aesthetic theory on which they were based.

"Then we elaborated the details of the alleged poet's life. This took more time than the composition of his works.

What it Proves

"Mr. Harris and Mr. John Reed, co-editors of 'Angry Penguins,' Mr. Harry Roskolenko, American poet in the United States Forces, who had some 'Ern Malley' poems published in New York in an anthology of Australian verse he collected, and others, accepted these poems as having considerable merit.

"However, that fact does not, as it might seem to do, prove their complete lack of intelligence.

"It proves something far more interesting. It proves that a literary fashion can become so hypnotically powerful that it can suspend the operation of critical intelligence in quite a large number of people.

"We feel that the experiment could have been equally successful in England. Apparently it was in America to the extent that the publisher was taken in.

Growth of School

"A literary movement such as the one we aimed at debunking began with the 'dadaist' movement in France during the last war.

"This gave birth to the 'surrealist' movement, which was followed in England by the 'new apocalypse' school, while the Australian counterparts are 'Angry Penguins.'

"This cultism resembles on a small scale the progress of certain European political parties.

"An efficient publicity apparatus is switched on to beat the big drum and drown opposition.

"Doubters are shamed to silence by the fear of appearing stupid or -- worse crime -- if anyone raises his voice in protest, he is mobbed with shrill invective.

"The faithful, meanwhile, to keep their spirits up, shout encouragements and slogans, and gather in groups, so as to have no time to think.

"For the Ern Malley poems there cannot even be as a lost resort any valid surrealist claim that, even if they have no literary value, which it has been said they do possess, they are at least 'psychological documents.' They are not even that.

No Literary Merit

"They are the conscious product of minds intentionally interrupting each other's trains of free association; and altering and revising them after they are written down.

"So they have not even psychological value.

"And, as we have already explained conclusively, the writings of Ern Malley are utterly devoid of literary merit as poetry.

"James McAuley.

"Harold Stewart."

Corporal Stewart, subsequently added:-- "The first three lines of the poem, 'Culture Is Exhibit,' were lifted straight from an American report on the drainage of breeding grounds of mosquitoes.

"They were quoted to indicate that they had been lifted as a quotation.

"The alleged quotation from Lenin heading one of the poems. 'The Emotions Are Not Skilled Workers,' is quite phoney."

Among the writers named in 'Who is Ern Malley?'' conjectures were Professor J. L. M. Stewart, of Adelaide University, who is also a detective novelist, Michael Innes,   Douglas Stewart (Sydney writer and poet) and "Angry Penguin" Max Harris.

First published in The Mail, 24 June 1944

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

Reprint: Literary Hoax: "Doctorates" Awarded

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SYDNEY, July 2. - The degree of Doctor of Science in Oxometry has been awarded to the hoax poet, Ern Malley, by the Sydney University Oxometrical Society. Copies of the degree have been given to the two former Sydney University students, Lt James McAuley and Cpl Harold Stewart, who wrote the poems, which were published in the Adelaide literary magazine "Angry Penguins" and hailed by the magazine's editor, Max Harris, as the work of a giant of contemporary Australian poetry.

The real authors have confessed
that they thought their Malley poetry was nonsense. The word "oxometry" is not to be found in any dictionary but is defined by Mr R. N. Bracewell, president of the society, as "'very pretentious talk." The emblem of the society is a bull.

Mr Bracewell said that McAuley
and Stewart had shown a commendable, impartial attitude in conducting an investigation into the oxogenic structure of some contemporary poetry.

The affair has been laughingly
hailed in university circles as Australia's greatest literary hoax. Lt McAuley is a frequent contributor of lyric poetry to many Australian literary journals, and Cpl Stewart, who is at present a patient in a military hospital near Sydney, is also a capable poet.

The American poet, Harry Rosko
lenko, who is at present in Australia with the US Army, selected two of the Ern Malley poems for inclusion in the Australian poetry number of the American magazine "Voices." When the Malley hoax was revealed Roskolenko claimed that the hoaxers had hoaxed themselves by writing poems of which they could feel proud, but so far neither McAuley nor Stewart has appeared anxious to claim serious recognition for their masterpieces of debunking.

First published in The West Australian, 3 July 1944

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

Reprint: Mystery of Poet Stirs 'Varsity: Challenge Over Ern Malley

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Mr. Brian Elliott, lecturer in Australian literature at the Adelaide University, has challenged Mr. Max Harris to prove the existence of Ern Malley, a poet "discovered" by Harris,

The mystery of Ern Malley is causing concern in literary circles not only in Adelaide, but through out Australia. The reason is that the poems are good, whoever wrote them. Some of them were included in the anthology of Australian verse collected by the American poet, Harry Roskelenko, and published in New York by Henry Vinnal.

An alleged life story of Malley, together with all his poems, appears in the latest issue of "Angry Penguins," published by Reed & Harris. 

Mr. Elliott was asked to review this issue for the Adelaide University Union publication "On Dit." 

He sent, instead, a "Batrachic Ode," the first letters of each line of which spell "Max Harris Hoax.'' With the ode was a letter to the editor in which he said. 'I promised to review the new "Angry Penguins" for you. The task is beyond my humble capacity. I ask you to forgive me. Some splendid poems (e.g., Davies' about Joshua) are bound to be eclipsed in the "Darkening Ecliptic," by Ernest Lalor Malley. This sequence of poems, some of which I understand, fires me to passionate admiration."

Seventeen Poems

In a postscript Mr. Elliott added: 'Malley is the goods. Nothing better has been written since the "Vegetable Pie." 

"The Darkening Ecliptic" consists of 17 poems. They are published in "Angry Penguins" with an introduction and a biography of Malley by Max Harris.

Harris says:-- "Recently I was sent two poems from a Miss Ethel Malley, who wrote saying they were found among her brother's possessions after his death on July 23, 1943. Someone suggested to her that they might be of value, and that she send them to me for an opinion.

"At this stage I knew nothing about the author at all, but I was immediately impressed that here was a poet of tremendous power working through a disciplined and restrained kind of statement into the deepest wells of human experience."

Story of Life

Harris adds that at his request, Miss Malley then sent him, from Sydney, the complete manuscripts of her brother's poems, together with a letter telling her brother's life story as she knew it.

The introduction then quotes verbatim from the letter. According to this Malley died of Graves disease at the age of 25. He was born at Liverpool, in England, on March 14, 1918. Their father died of war wounds in 1920, and the family then came to Australia.

They lived in Petersham (a Sydney suburb), and Ern went to the Petersham Public School and the Summer Hill Intermediate High School.

In 1933 he left school and went to work as a mechanic in Palmer's garage, on Taverner's Hill. Later he went to Melbourne, where his sister believed he was selling policies for the National Mutual Life Insurance Co., living in a room by himself in South Melbourne. Later he returned to Sydney, where he died.

The letter ended with, "As he wished, he was cremated at Rookwood."

Appear Genuine

Adelaide University students who have seen the original of this letter and the original poems say that if it is a hoax it is an elaborately prepared one, as these documents appear to be genuine.

"On Dit," in commenting on the controversy, says: "Superficially, Malley's work and opinions could be taken as belonging to Mr. Harris -- they are in true Penguin's style.

"Mr. Harris sincerely insists that he is not hoaxing anyone: there is nothing to gain from doing so; but on close examination Malley has left clues of literary knowledge which to the learned and initiated indicate Adelaide as the source of the poems, and if not Harris then a close friend of his."

Professor Mentioned

Mr. Elliott said today that he was firmly convinced that Max Harris wrote the poems.

He said that he had heard a rumor that they might have been written by the professor of English literature (Professor J. I. M. Stewart).

"'I think it absolutely incredible," he said. Students who discuss the rumor that the poems may be the work of Professor Stewart point out that he is keenly interested in modern poetry.

Professor Stewart is also the detective novelist Michael Innes. He said today that he had heard of Em Malley and of Max Harris, but he did not wish to comment on either of them. 

First published in The Mail, 17 June 1944

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: Angry Penguins Defended

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Sir: In the public interest, we, the undersigned Australian authors and others vitally interested in Australian creative talent and the advancement of Australian art and literature, record our vigorous protest against the recent prosecution in Adelaide of one of the editors of the journal Angry Penguins for publishing "indecent, immoral, and obscene" writing.

A prosecution of such a kind is not in the public interest, and operates only to handicap and embarrass literary and artistic expression. Further, it brings the Australian community into ridicule. No sensible person would claim that Australian literary journals and publications have had any injurious effect upon the Australian moral standards, but, in any event, the common sense and experience of the public afford adequate safeguards. It is both the right and the duty of the artist to express honestly what he feels and sees in life, and freedom to do so is at the very root of humanity and genuine democracy. It is among the foremost freedoms which the United Nations are at war to preserve.

In signing this protest we are not committing ourselves in any way to an endorsement of the merit of the work appearing in Angry Penguins; we are concerned only to uphold the right of its contributors and pub- lishers to freedom of expression. (Signed):

JOHN V. BARRY, REG. S. ELLERY, HENRIETTA DRAKE - BROCKMAN, ADRIAN LAWLOR, JOHN MCKELLAR. J. K. MOIR, C. B. CHRISTESEN, C. R. BADGER, BRIAN FITZPATRICK, VANCE PALMER. NETTIE PALMER, ALAN MARSHALL, A. R. CHISHOLM. R. M. CRAWFORD. H. H. BURTON.

Sir: The recent prosecution of Angry Penguins on the grounds of obscenity is a slur on our cultural and democratic tradition, and must be denounced by all those to whom the Atlantic Charter's freedoms have any real meaning at all. Many people may disagree with the material to be found in this journal, but no qualified person can possibly dispute its claim to be treated as a serious literary production without the slightest tendency towards salacious or pornographic writing. As a contributor to a number of Australian publications, I can state emphatically that if Angry Penguins deserves to be prosecuted then the same thing undoubtedly applies infinitely more to nine-tenths of the magazines and books now to be found on every news-stand. - ALAN MARSHALL (Caulfield.)

First published in The Argus, 26 October 1944

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

Reprint: "Rolf Boldrewood" in New Zealand: An Interview

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Says the Christchurch Press: -- Mr. T. A. Browne, to give "Rolf Boldrewood" his proper title, occupied for a number of years various positions in the civil service of' New South Wales. He recently retired, and is now engaged in the pleasant occupation of "seeing New Zealand." While in Christchurch he was the guest of Mr. Justice Denniston, and a member of our staff had an interview with the notable author.

OFFICIAL LIFE.

Mr. Browne said that he became a squatter away back in the fifties, but relinquished this pursuit after the severe droughts of 1866 and '68, which caused him heavy losses. In April, 1871, he was appointed police magistrate and goldfields commissioner at Gulgong, near Mudgee (N.S.W.), and during his first five years in that position the diggers of Gulgong turned out 16 tons of gold from the great alluvial field, and he had to settle all the disputes arising out of the winning of that quantity of the precious metal. He held the appointment for ten years, and then had charge of Dubbo, a circuit town of New South Wales, and in the centre of a large agricultural and pastoral district. There were some goldfields near and around Dubbo, and the Tomingley gold field arose while he was there. Though it was not a large field there were several very rich claims, and it was a curious coincidence that he made the acquaintance again on the Manapouri between Sydney and Auckland lately of a Mr. Sullivan, whom he met in 1882 as a miner on that field, who had made his fortune, sold out his shares, and was off to America and Ireland to see his friends. After serving at Dubbo for three years Mr. Browne was appointed to Armidale, New England, New South Wales. He was there not quite a year when he went to Albury as chairman of the Albury Crown Land Board, which office he retained for two and a half years. He was shortly afterwards appointed police magistrate and goldfields warden at Albury, where he remained until June, 1895, when he retired from the civil service of New South Wales, and went to reside in Melbourne.

LITERARY WORK.

In answer to a question as to the time when he began his literary work, Mr. Browne said that it was in 1866 when he was by himself on his station on the Murrumbidgee, and was laid up for some time in consequence of a kick he had received from a horse. He sent his first contribution to the Cornhill Magazine. It was entitled "A Kangaroo Drive," and was published in that magazine. A short time afterwards another tale was published called "Shearing in the Riverina." When he accepted the appointment of police magistrate he commenced to write tales descriptive of the various phases of Australian country life for the Australian weekly papers. His first tales were published in the Town and Country Journal and the Australasian. "Robbery Under Arms" was written at Dubbo. It was published in the Sydney Mail in 1881, and attracted a good deal of attention. So much interest, indeed, was taken in it that the proprietors subsequently republished it in the Echo, and it was considered, said Mr. Browne with pardonable pride, a good and true picture of certain phases of Australian life, such as could only have been written by an author who had lived all his life in the country. The story was published in book form by Macmillan and Co., who have altogether issued ten books from Mr. Browne's pen, all of which have met with marked success. Only one story was completed before its publication was commenced. He generally sent along weekly chapters, which he wrote leisurely, either while travelling or when at home, in the evenings or before breakfast.

BUSHRANGERS AND POLICE.

Touching upon some of the phases of Australian life, depicted so graphically in the books referred to, Mr. Browne remarked that bushranging was very much a thing of the past in Australia. The larger areas of pastoral territory were now fenced with wire, and rendered it difficult for people to cross the country. The police organisation of New South Wales and Victoria was very complete, and there was thus a smaller chance of criminals escaping or carrying on their business as portrayed in "Robbery Under Arms." Besides, the police were largely recruited from natives of the colony, who were more efficient in the way of riding and tracking than the Australian police of British birth; in fact, they were quite as good riders and trackers as the outlaws themselves. "Rolf Boldrewood" considered that the New South Wales police were the most efficient body of men of their kind in the world. They were under an admirable system of supervision.

AUSTRALIAN ART AND LITERATURE.

Mr. Browne had next a few words to say concerning Australian literature and art, the present state of which he thought was very promising. New writers had sprung up of considerable merit, and they now had A. B. Paterson, who had written ballads of a high order of excellence. No doubt Henry Lawson's ballads deserved praise, though they appeared to be too much on the sundowners' side, and he was too fond of attributing the men's woes to the attitude of the wicked squatter. Mr. Browne, however, thought that "The Man from Snowy River," &c., were quite the best since the time of Gordon, and in some respects were nearer to Australian color than Gordon's works. In art they had Frank Mahony, who illustrated Australian tales and poems as none but a born Australian could do. He was very happy in his subjects, and in figures and animals his work was quite artistic. There were several literary aspirants, both male and female, of considerable excellence, who showed signs of becoming successful, and altogether Australian art and literature appeared to have a bright future before them.

IMPRESSIONS OF NEW ZEALAND.

Our visitor observed that he had visited the South Island of New Zealand some years ago, and from what he had seen upon this present visit his impressions were extremely favorable in every way. He considered the colony, in the matter of climate, soil for pastoral and agricultural purposes, superior to a very large portion of either Victoria or New South Wales. It was far better watered, and there was a better average rainfall, and it would sustain a larger population on a smaller area. He had, he said, just come from Akaroa, which was a most lovely spot, and he bad not seen finer pasture in all his life. He was quite surprised at the growth of the cocksfoot. He regarded this old French settlement as a most suitable place for people of means who wished to lead a quiet life, for they would have the advantages of beautiful scenery and a fine soil. In concluding the interview Mr. Browne remarked that he anticipated publishing several more books on Australian and colonial subjects, and it was very probable that he would write something about New Zealand.

Published in The Inquirer and Commercial News, 5 June 1896

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

Reprint: Rolf Boldrewood's New Book

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A little studious mystification is practised by "Rolf Boldrewood" in his latest work. "My Run Home" may be either fiction or a scrap of biography, and the reader, on first taking the book in hand inclines to the latter supposition. It is rather wickedly fostered by the author in many ingenious ways. No word of preface, no suggestion of a date, rewards the inquisitive searcher, although the hero of the personally-related   narrative is "Rolf Boldrewood" himself. But we presently conclude, from internal evidence, that the novelist is at his recognised craft, and has determined to clothe with all the vraisemblance he can a breezy tale of the impressions and experiences of a young Australian on his first visit to the motherland. As for dates -- if a fiction writer need be worried about such details -- we must certainly cast back awhile for the   period of the narrative. Cremorne is still in full swing, and the hero, shoulder to shoulder with other stalwart Australians, enjoys the excitement of fighting his way out of that place of entertainment, vanquishing the assembled representatives of British rowdyism. It is but legitimate patriotism in an Australian writer to see that things go prosperously for the Australian abroad. At one page also the redoubtable Tom Sayers appears, to vanish again too soon, which sets the reader wondering whether the hero of Farnham fight really did live to see the steamships Massilia and Kaiser-i-Hind afloat. But such chronological queries are of small moment beside the fact that Rolf Boldrewood tells his tale with a light-hearted freshness and vigour which make him easy and pleasant reading. There used to be no one like Captain Marryat or Charles Lever for clearing the hedges and ditches of a story, and Rolf Boldrewood, who has a sure seat and steady bridle hand, sets himself to emulate their straight-going. His narrative progresses at a gallop, without pause or check, and with little of the descriptive work which often becomes a tedious conventionality. The equestrian simile is specially apt in this case, because the book is liberally studded with rough-riding feats and stirring episodes in the hunting-field -- subjects upon which the author writes as one who knows. The story of how the Australian hero proves his horsemanship upon "The Pirate" is related with some graphic touches, and as amplitude of workmanlike detail. Equally spirited is the narrative of Rolf Boldrewood's run with the Galway hounds, for the scene shifts appropriately to Ireland, the Elysium of dare-devil riders. A thread of love interest is interwoven with these adventures, but it does not command chief attention. The story of how Rolf Boldrewood escaped from the toils of the mercenary Isidora, and wedded open-hearted "Cousin Gwen" instead, is of subsidiary interest to the pictures of sporting life. The book, which is a recent addition to Macmillan's "Colonial Library," reaches us through Messrs George Robertson and Sons.

First published in The Argus, 24 July 1897

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

It happens to all of us who love books and possess a few. One day we are discussing some matter, and find our selves saying, "By the way there's something about it in that book by X. I'll show it to you." We go over to the right shelf, put our fingers on the right spot (for we could find the book in the dark) and draw out something very like a vacuum. No, there was not exactly a physical gap on the shelves, or we should have noticed our loss before. The book is gone but its neighbours, with perhaps some obscure humanitarian impulse, have closed in making an unbroken row as if all were well. Yet all is not well! That apt allusion in X's book cannot be verified to-day, nor for many days. The next following discomfort will be some "long, long thoughts," as you try to remember who on earth ever borrowed precisely that book. The general result is a feeling that if X's book can go without warning, we live in a shaken and unsure world, not to say universe. Why, we ask, did we ever consent to lend any book at all!

Well, why did any book lover ever lend books that were loved'? Simply because he loved them, and because he was delighted to find some one who seemed eager about them. The impulse is so natural. A garden enthusiast, going round his beds with a friend, nearly always enjoys taking scissors and a basket and giving the friend an armful of flowers. It blesseth him that gives, for plentiful flowers should not die on their stalks. In the same way, books left standing on their shelves gather nothing but unhousewifely dust. If passed from hand to hand they seem to live again, so, when a friend comes glancing along my shelves and suddenly pounces on a book, crying, "Well, I   didn t know A.E. had collected his early prose into a book!"' I am delighted. The one reply is "Please borrow that book for as long is you like. I want it back some day, for reference, and because it completes a small group of Irish books.   But there is no hurry." That is what you feel, very sincerely. Rather than let a book stand uviisited for a long time you would let it be perilously promenaded in your friend's pocket or even worn out a little by being read in trains. For a book is less than a book if it is not being read.

A Fallacy.

Gazing, though, at that new lock on your shelf, you wonder what made you ever imagine that all books, when lent out, would return. Your root idea, as lender, was that all borrowers were book lovers, and all book lovers had book consciences. Yet you knew that book-borrowers are merely human. They do not steal books, they use them, they pass them on temporarily, to other friends, who do the same... Sometimes they love a book outright, simply that. As for your loss, all lenders of books have had the same experience. Charles Lamb complained of it, though he just managed to forgive Coleridge on account of the splendid marginal notes he added to the books he borrowed. If and when the book did return home, these notes would have increased its worth. Other book-lovers have written of their losses, sometimes even attempting a rueful complacency. One said, thanking his borrowers -

   For oh, they've eased me of my Burns  
   And freed me from my Akenside.

Any one who could fun, while in such woe would surely dance at his own funeral.

Returning Borrowed Books.

Most of us have occasions when we rouse ourselves to plan the recovery of our lost treasures. Sometimes it is worth the attempt. The first thing to do, and it is best done in the salutary days near the 1st January, is to purge your own shelves of borrowed books. There is no need to go to extremes in this act, sending back half-read books that you borrowed only last week. The thing is to go through your shelves and make sure that none of your friends' books are mildewing on your shelves when they ought to be mouldering on their own. A borrowed book is a visitor not a resident, not even a "permanent" boarder.  Clear all borrowed books off your conscience then. Next, renew your annually broken vow to keep a list of all the books you lend and the names of the borrowers. This is a repugnant job, but it will save you an excess of brain-cudgelling before the year is out. Next, why not try to reclaim some of the books you lightly cudgelled your brains over last year? Perhaps you can suddenly remember, now, who it was that went away with De Regnier's poems about Versailles tucked under her arm. Perhaps some train of reasoning will make it clear to you what friend's friend will be now in possession of those out of print poems by Vaughn Moody!' But who could possibly have taken that signed novel given you months ago by your friend who wrote it?

Missing Books.

Yet your sifted memory and your borrower's memory may both fail to reinstate such and such a book on your hungry shelf. I once tried something systematic, but don't recommend the experiment to any one else. Missing some books that I both desired and needed, I thought I would send my bookish friends a round-robin, not through the post, but using the power of the Press. It was hard to decide which column of the huge daily would best receive my modest advertisement. I thought of board and lodging, for indeed I had house room to offer my strays. Then the wanted columns beckoned, but they all wanted to buy or sell. The lost and found? But my books were neither. At last I decided on "Missing Friends," the agony column! I simply asked if friends who had borrowed any of my books would return them before I moved away. There was only one response, and that a harrowing one. A rather new acquaintance, to whom I had lent some unimportant and ordinary novels only a week before, returned them all by next post, and of course never borrowed anything again. Meanwhile the lost and necessary books, the rare and irreplaceable ones, remained where they lay, too many of them (as the sad- dest of phrases puts it) "forgotten like a crust behind a trunk."  

Unreturning Books.

There is, of course, one simple way out of it all, One of the New Year resolutions could be to lend no more books on any account. That would attack the trouble at the root. The answer is that it is not worth it. The prospect would be unbearable. Imagine showing a friend round your bookshelves and never dropping into the natural old form of words: "Do please borrow anything that interests you." In saying those words, of course, you know that you are pronouncing the death warrant of a percentage of the books that pass out through your door. Yet you know too, that such books as survive will be living more fully than if you hoarded them undisturbed behind glass doors. The Melbourne Public Library has a Latin epigram in praise of books stamped on every bookcover. Its last word is "peregrinantur": books are meant to wander, to go on pilgrimages. Even if some fall by the wayside and are lost, they will have escaped from oppressive indoors, care that is only a dignified form of neglect. Ask any decent book, with its covers still holding it together, and it will certainly tell you that it wishes, in Nietzsche's phrase, to "live dangerously." Let us all lend our books then, and sometimes even borrow them! 

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 5 February 1927

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: Did "Worser" Become "Wowser"?

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Sir, -- An item in the issue of the Queensland "Worker" of 30/6/47 interested me, as I consider I am connected with the origin of the word "Wowser."  

My version of the word's origin is that it came to light in 1898. There was a huge number of unemployed in Sydney and through the country. The Government Labour Bureau was in Chalmers St., close to the Chalmers Church, and opposite the old Exhibition Building in Prince Alfred Park.

Men mustered at the Bureau by the hundreds like forlorn sheep. Many of us joined the Surplus Labour League, and held meetings in the park and addressed the crowd of unemployed.  

A committee of 10 was elected, five were a working part, and when any one of the five got work others of the committee stepped up and filled the vacancy.

Mr. G. H. Reid was Premier, and received many deputations. To the first one he gave us £500 for food, and at a second another £500-- £1000, 200 pairs of blankets, and sent hundreds of men to the country clearing the Boganj Scrub on railway work and other places.

I got work for a couple of months and went back to the Bureau, and one morning was conversing with a man behind the church who was very dissatisfied with the actions of the committee and condemning them tooth and nail. I asked him where they did wrong and what they should do to improve conditions. I told him there would be a meeting in an hour's time and asked if he would be there. He said, "Yes." I found out his name. I was the third speaker, and after generalities I came round to those who would not help to make things better. I looked at the man and asked if there was a Mr. Phillips in the crowd. He did not answer. I looked in a different direction and repeated the question with no reply. I looked again in the direction of the man, adding, "I know he is here as I am looking directly at him," and he answered, "Yes."

I asked if he remembered the conversation we had behind the church that morning. He said, "Yes."

I said, "You complained that the committee had done nothing right and you mentioned things they should do, and I am asking you to come on the platform and tell the crowd what they should do to better conditions."

I asked him to come up several times and he refused. I then opened out on him, describing him for what I thought he was, and finished up by telling him he was not a "betterer"-- one who helped to make conditions better -- but that he was a "worser," one who made conditions worse.

We had a freelance who reported our meetings to the press, and whether the word "worser" was blurred and not plain and distinct I do not know, but the word came out WOWSER, maybe a printer's error.

I have heard Mr. John Norton many times while delivering election addresses using the word "wowser," and admit he popularised it.

The late Mr. C. J. Dennis also claimed he had something to do with its origin, stating he had used that word more than two years before Mr. Norton. My uttering of the word "worser" was in 1898, and I can place the time by an entry of wages in a book I have.

WILLIAM OSBORN.

Broadwater, Richmond River, N.S.W.

(P.S. -- I feel very pleased to say I am a member of the grand old A.W.U. since the amalgamation of the Rural Workers' Union, and my ticket number is No. 47004.)

First published in The Worker (Queensland), 18 August 1947

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

It is on record that once, when in England, William Morris Hughes was asked what the Australian climate was like. "First tell me," he rapped out, "what the climate of Europe is like!" Put the Australian landscape in place of its climate, or beside it, and you have the case for a poet or artist who has to deal with its extraordinary varied problems. What is the Australian landscape? Is it that of Tambo or Ballarat or the Blue Mountains or Broome? As well ask if the European landscape is that of Brittany or Spain! When a poet, therefore, is known as an interpreter of our landscape, we may well ask, "Which landscape?'" and be glad to hear that he has confined his aims, to the treatment of one region. That is task enough and to spare. Henry Kendall was the first and most eager of our definite landscape painters in words, and it is important to remember, as Mr. A. G. Stephens points out in a recent critical review of this poet's work, that what he absorbed was "the natural spirit of the southeast coast of Australia, between the mountains and the sea." Kendall knew that country in New South Wales especially, but all his descriptive work would be at home in the same kind of seaboard country in Southern Queensland -- what is known as the South Coast and the North Coast. (This naming seems to me unfortunate as it is in New South Wales, too.)   When I told people that I lived on the North Coast in Queensland, they began looking at the map near Cape York!  At the same time it is droll to hear Queenslanders speaking of the "Northern Rivers," just south of the Queensland border).

Kendall's Bush.

For the moment I do not intend to look at Kendall primarily as a poet, quoting his work that was highest as poetry. What I want to follow is his skill in rendering a landscape that was his to interpret for the first time. Before him, Harpur had done some astonishing and vigorous work, but the field was hardly touched by him. Enter Kendall, born at Ulladulla, in the timbered ridges, a dozen miles from the sea; he was taken later to the watered district of the Orara and the Clarence Rivers. He knew the harshness of the timber-getters' lives and the realities of sheep farming; but the whole scene was for him impregnated with beauty. His first boyish poems evoked a scene that was full of waterfalls, fern gullies, birdsong, and brilliance, brilliance without harshness. This is from "Morning in the Bush":

   Amongst the gnarly apple-trees, a gorgeous tribe of parrots came
   And, screaming, leapt from bough to bough like living jets of crimson flame;
   And, where the hillside-growing gums their web-like foliage upward threw,
   Old Nature rang with echoes from the loud-voiced mountain cockatoo;
   And a thousand nameless twittering things, between the rustling sapling sprays,
   Went flashing through the fragrant leaves, and dancing like to fabled fays.

So Kendall wrote in his youth, full of zest and enthusiasm and a straightness of purpose. It is pleasant, too, to see the length of those lines, which happened to suit the purpose of this poem. He had evidently never heard of payment by the line, a habit which causes so many verse-makers to split each line down the middle, so as to make it two! Just try splitting the lines in this poem, and printing each one as two, and see how the whole verse thuds and thumps along. In quoting these particularly vibrant lines I have hardly suggested the most characteristic Kendall, the Kendall who wrote in lyrical metres of bellbirds and mountain dells, and who used the sweetest and most liquid of the native names to make refrains for his songs. I use the expression "mountain dells," not that it is the best for our landscape, since the word "gully," with its association of depth and contrast, has replaced it in Australia; I use it because Kendall used words like "grove" and "glen," and "dell" so often. His tools, after all, were those of another country. The marvel was that with them he shaped a landscape that we can all recognise. I am not sure that Kendall even used the word "bush" as we do when we say "the bush." Yet it is an old enough word. You'll perhaps remember that it was used by no less a talker than Mrs. Nickleby herself when she once became reminiscent about one of her early admirers: "And he went to Australia and got lost in a bush with some sheep. I don't know how they got there. . .-"So Dickens knew of "the bush" since he allows his Mrs. Malaprop-Nickleby to trip over it. But if Kendall does not master the use of indigenous words and terms so as to drench them with poetry and draw them into his singing lines, he has, after all, mastered the landscape itself:

   And lucid colours born of woodland light,
   And shining places where the sea-streams lie.

Those lines he wrote, in a famous sonnet of despair, using them to name the themes that he had once hoped to render. But the lines are more than names, they are a poem in themselves; such a poem, to be impressive, need not be long.

    In small proportions we just beauties see.

Our Own Poet.  

Poetry does two things for us. It brings beauty to us from everywhere, from Xanadu, Cathay, Avalon, from the skies: it also brings us to beauty, showing us what is in the life around us. Just now I was reading another sonnet of Kendall's, and its simple words seemed as if spoken by some one with a poet's heart, beating anywhere, let us say, between Noosa and the Tweed. Here it is:--

   Sometimes, we feel so spent for want of rest,
   We have no thought beyond. I know, to-day,
   When tired of bitter lips, and dull delay,
   With faithless words, I cast mine eyes upon
   The shadows of a distant mountain-crest
   And said: That hill must hide within its breast
   Some secret glen, secluded from the sun . . .
   O mother Nature! Would that I could run
   Into thy arms, and, like a wearied guest,
   Half blind with lamps and sick of feasting, lay
   An aching head on thee. . . . Then, down the streams
   The moon might swim, and I should feel her grace
   While soft winds blew the sorrows from my face,
   So quiet in the fellowship of dreams.

There are indeed such secret glens in our coastal ranges for those who will take time to seek them out. Their lovers will say their names over, beginning, maybe, with Bon Accord Falls, that place of superb contrasts -- dizzy heights, and finest ferny detail; delicate birdsong, and the soaring of a wedge-tail eagle over the gorge. But each of us can find different names for the secret glens, or remember others that are nameless. In doing this we have touched the very sources of Kendall's poetry.


First published in The Brisbane Courier, 13 October 1928

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

Reprint: Henry Kendall

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The first half century of Australian history produced little creative artistic work. Wentworth, when he was at Cambridge, wrote a very fine poem, in which he sounded a note of Australia's future greatness, and predicted the rise of some "Austral Shakespeare, whose living page, to nature true, may charm in every age." That poem, however, beautifully correct as it may be, lacked any emotional impulse. The first really genuine poetic piping was heard in 1845, when Charles Harpur, a native of Goulburn, the city that has just celebrated its centenary, wrote a little book of sonnets. The sixties saw the rise of Gordon and Kendall. They were two poetic stars that burst out of the literary darkness about the same time, the one in Victoria and the other in New South Wales. Brilliant as Gordon was, revealing the influence of both Swinburne and Browning, he was not so musical as Kendall, and not so subtle and humorous as Brunton Stephens, who, like the rich and delicate Essex Evans, belongs to a later period. Henry Kendall is probably the most musical of Australia's poets. It is nearly sixty years since he began to sing his brave woodland notes. His poem "To a Mountain" is Australia's   masterpiece. No other Australian poet has reached the towering heights of arcadian grandeur that Kendall trod, nor has any other poet touched our woodland scenery with the same exquisite colouring. He wrote in an age, however, when Australia had little inclination for art, and he felt the hardships occasioned by a small and always insecure income until in his later years the late Sir Henry Parkes, one of his first admirers, secured for him a position in the Government service which was both congenial and remunerative. Unfortunately Kendall did not long enjoy his ease, falling a victim to consumption in the year I882, at the age of 41 years. At different times Kendall's poems have been published in different sections in different volumes, but these have now been gathered into one very fine edition, entitled "The Poems of Henry Kendall" (Angus and Robertson, Ltd., Sydney), to which Mr. Bertram Stevens has contributed a short biographical note. The new volume contains the poems included in the three volumes published during Kendall's lifetime, those not reprinted by Kendall, but included in a collected edition of 1886, and a number of poems now printed for the first time, having been secured from the Kendall manuscripts in the Mitchell Library. The new volume contains nearly 400 pages, and although all the poems are not of the same high standard yet Kendall mostly wrote with the inspiration of the true artist, and his best pieces will certainly have an enduring place wherever English poetry is read. Our copy is through Mr. J. H. Thomson, Queen-street.

First published in The Queenslander, 6 November 1920

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

The number of Australian women writers is no less remarkable than their virility. With the possible exception of Ethel Turner (Mrs. H. Curlewis), who has not published a book for some time, most of those who were writing well twenty and more than twenty years ago are producing good work still -- Mary Gilmore, Stella Miles Franklin, Louise Mack, Mrs. Ada Holman, Dora Wilcox; and of a younger generation of writers, Dulcie Deamer, Vera Dwyer, Ella McFadyen, Nina Murdoch, and Katherine Susannah Prichard, to mention a mere handful.

Many of them began to write as children. At sixteen, Dulcie Deamer leapt into fame by winning a prize for a short story competition. Her novels, historical (not Australian), have been serialised by the Hurst Syndicate, and she, too, continues to write as well as ever; in the case of her verse, with gradual improvement. Katherine Susannah Prichard was born in Fiji, educated along with Elsie Cole and other women writers when young, at South Melbourne College where poet Bernard O'Hara taught her. She won Hodder and Stoughton's prize for a novel, "The Pioneers," in 1915, and her work his steadily increased in power since "Coonardoo," which won the first "Bulletin" novel competition with "A House is Built," is, possibly, her finest piece of work.

Vera Dwyer, a protegee of Ethel Turner, as are Ruby Doyle and other Australian women writers, was a remarkable child writer. In a recent novel, "In Pursuit of Patrick," despite immature passages in it, she proved that she can write a successful adult story. Hitherto her work was mainly for children.

SUCCESS ABROAD.

Many Australian women, who started well at home, have done even better abroad -- Helen Simpson and Alice Grant Rosman, for instance, Dorothy Cottrell, one of Mary Gilmore's several "discoveries" -- (Daniel Hamlyn, a winner in the second "Bulletin" novel competition and a promising woman writer-is another), wrote her successful novels 'Singing Gold" and "Earth Battle" here. Colour is the chief characteristic of them, and her first attempt, "Singing Gold," is distinguished in this respect.

Other Australians have published abroad without leaving home. One of the most interesting of these is the daughter of Dowell O'Reilly, Eleanor Dark, who wrote originally as Patricia O'Rane. She is still very young, and though the wife of a busy doctor, manages to keep the torch of a little literary group burning brightly in Katoomba. Nina Lowe, an excellent short story writer, who during the war edited a cookery book for the Red Cross, which netted £500, is a member of the group. Mrs. Dark's last book, "Prelude to Christopher," was published here. Mary Kelaher, whose novels were first serialised in the "Woman's Mirror," and who almost might be termed a "dlscovery" of the late editor, Mr. Bert Toy, is station bred and has given us people of a life she knows. Another young writer, Georgia Rivers of Melbourne, has produced many novels. "The Difficult Art" (of a young girl growing up) is a most unusual book. Jessie Urquhart brought out her first book here many years ago, and is now publishing in London; but she will not, I think, do her best work until, like Alice Grant Rosman, she relinquishes journalism for fiction. Amongst new names, Mary Mitchell's stands out. She achieved a London success with "Warning to Wantons." But this book is not Australian and is of little importance to us here. She could write, I imagine, a good Australian society novel, for which there is a waiting public.

LITERARY COMPETITIONS.

Recent literary competitions have revealed some new women writers, chief of these being Velia Ercole, Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw, the latter joint authoresses of "A House is Built."

Henry Handel Richardson was introduced to Australlans by Nettie Palmer, herself an able essayist and critic. Born in Melbourne, the daughter of an English doctor, and educated at the Presbyterian Ladies' College there, Henry Handel Richardson went to London, when she was eighteen, to study music. She took up fiction writing instead and for years worked and published practically unnoticed save by her own contemporaries, few of whom, in the realm of fiction, have equalled her in style and form of production. Fame came with her last book, "Ultima Thule." This is by far her best effort, lucid and sincere. It completes a trilogy of books dealing with the fortunes or rather misfortunes of Richard Mahoney, a doctor who did not like being a doctor. There are faults to be found from an Australian point of view with "Ultima Thule," the whole action of which takes place in Australia; but few in the presentation of it. The writer, unlike Galsworthy, who never rises above blood-heat, allows each of her characters their own temperature. Many may, however, question the worth of such details of a failure's life. But the writer is not at home outside tragedy. "The Getting of Wisdom," a look for girls, fails to awaken interest.

ETHEL TURNER.

Because of the influence of Ethel Turner, Australians have done well in the portrayal of children. Too much stress cannot be laid on the fact that Ethel Turner, from the moment she opened the door of an Australian house and showed the world what we were really like, has been a guiding star for the best. She has not been able to give us adults as real as her children, but the germ is there. Born in England, Ethel Turner came as a child to Australia and was educated with her sister, Lilian and Louise, and Amy Mack, at the Sydney Girls' High School. She was very young when "Seven Little Australians" first appeared.  The children in this book are, in their way, as immortal as "Alice," and it is only some inferiority   complex of Australians that has not recognised it, nor realised how much more real the children of "The House of Misrule" are than Anne of Green Gables. Many women have followed Ethel Turner -- Mary Grant Bruce, Constance Macanass, Elizabeth Powell, a younger writer, May Gibbs found a little fairy world all her own. Of late years, Dorothy Wall has achieved some recognition.

A number of imaginative women writers are immersed in journalism. Myra Morris, Nora Kelly, Margaret Fane, E. M. England, Lyn Lucas, a relative of E. V. Lucas, D. L. Waraker, being a few. The two latter have produced good one-act plays. Miss Lucas, a Brisbane writer, won Carrie Tennant's play competition. It would be unfair in a survey of women writers not to mention Miss Tennant's name, for, while she conducted her little theatre, she did a good deal to encourage Australian playwrights. Doris Egerton Jones and Dorothy Tobin have done creditable work in longer plays.

Our women writers have no mean sense of humour when they like, though it cannot be termed a strong feature of their work. Winifred Birkett, a younger writer, who has published a couple of books, has developed this side pleasingly; and so, too, has Mary E. Lloyd, whose humorous work was praised by that discerning critic, the late A. G. Stephens. "Three Goats on a Bender" Miss Birkett named her humorous story; Miss Lloyd, "Susan's Little Sins."

All of our women writers are well read, none very keen about sport, though golf and tennis and sometimes dancing play a part in their leisure moments. All are earnest, sincere workers.

I have left Mary Gilmore, whose hobby might well be "the finding of new writers," to the last. She holds a unique place both in our hearts and our literature. For years through helping others, young and old, she delayed publication of her reminiscences, "Old Days Old Ways," an important contribution to our literature now delighting everyone. Her poetry will mean more to posterity than her prose, I think. She has published several volumes, the subjects ranging over a wide field, from charming little lyrics to lovely lullabies.

There are many others, who might well have been noticed, but all of these mentioned have published books either abroad or at home, and not one but will repay the reader's perusal.

Our women aim at truth in writing just as the men do; and this is characteristically Australian. We do not need to read Russian literature to inspire us to realism. Our country, born of suffering and hardship, has shaped our character, and out of it is coming a literature entirely different from any other. Women are doing their share in the building up of this national literature just as they did their share towards the making and shaping of the nation itself.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 April 1935

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

Reprint: Little Mother Meg by Ethel Turner

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Those who read '"Seven Little Australians" and "The Family at Misrule," by Ethel Turner (Mrs. H. R. Curlewis) will be delighted with her latest book,"'Little Mother Meg." It is a sequel to   the other two, and, if there are degrees of com- parison, is even more attractive than its predecessors. The pathos of the story is cleverly set off with fine touches of humour, and exquisite accounts, of the doings of the younger members of the House of Misrule. Meg's husband has lost his private income through the failure of a mine, and was obliged to throw up his position in the hospital owing to an affection of the eyes. He visits Heidelberg, where a specialist cures him, and returns, to work up a practise, with a debt of £600 to work off. His patients increase very slowly, and he and Meg have to practise all sorts of devices in the pursuit of economy, but their little baby boy sweetens the hard struggle against adverse circumstances. A turn in the wheel of fortune came when the doctor cured the daughter of a rich squatter from Queensland. The little girl had lost her reason some years before, owing to a fall from a horse. One day she wandered Into the paddocks at Misrule, and set fire to a heap of leaves. The fire caught her dress, and she was badly burnt. The shock seemed to undo the mischief which had, been caused by the fall from the horse, and, under the skilful care of Meg's husband, she is eventually restored to health, both in mind and body. The love affairs of Nellie, who is now some 18 years of age, make the romantic parts of the book, and are very naturally woven into the story. In the end she becomes engaged to Edward Twynam, a recent arrival from England. The story is delightfully told, and the characters are so life-like that one reaches the end with a sigh of regret, as for a departing friend. It is to be hoped that the author will soon add another sequel to the present series, which has delighted thousands of readers. The book is published by Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Company, and comes to us from Mr. E. W. Cole, Sydney and Melbourne.

First published in The Australian Town and Country Journal, 5 November 1902

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

This volume is the legacy which Mr. Sladen has left behind him upon his departure for Europe. It may be accepted as a convincing proof of the sincerity of his attachment to Australia that he informs us in the preface that he makes no attempt "to pose as an Australian." Just now attention has been drawn in some of the leading English papers to Australian poetry, especially to Gordon's works. It is eminently desirable that no such opinion should gain ground as that the author of the little book before us is accepted as a satisfactory representative of the native Australian school of poetry. It was, we believe, Sydney Smith who first reviewed at home a volume of poems from this part of the world. That volume contained a couplet borrowed from Bishop Hall's account of himself --

   I first adventure, follow me who list,
   And be the second Austral harmonist.

Since then, in addition to a very few in Australia who have written good verses and two or three who have earned a reputation for poetic genius, poetasters and rhymesters, good, bad, and indifferent, have rushed into print. They have saturated magazines and newspapers with bad rhymes and halting measures. They have taken the pains to manifest in public their lack of thought and their ignorance of rhythm. They have had nothing to say, and they have said it in sentences, more or less ungrammatical, which, being printed in Iines with capital initial letters, they have styled poems. Sometimes the "verse" has been blank -- very blank, but in other cases doggerel has been the rule. It is hard to decide which of these forms of poetical insanity is the worse, but the former sometimes enjoys the advantage of being easily translated into common sense. Of all such offenders as we have been describing Mr. Sladen is perhaps the worst, as he may be reckoned the most conspicuous. One can excuse half-educated people who want to lisp in numbers, for it is a small matter to them that the numbers are wanting. They have not had the advantage of an intimate acquaintance with the great Greek or even the great English masters. It is simply through vanity or ignorance of their incapacity that they rush in where angels fear to tread. But what shall we say of a man who has had a University education, who comes from one of the most classical schools of English thought, who can muster a whole army of letters after his name, who has occupied a position on the professorial staff of a University, and who may for all these reasons be assumed to have some acquaintance with the best that is known and thought in the world-- what shall we say of him when, with but slight claim to the poetic gift and with no special message to speak, he pours out from an apparently inexhaustible treasury volume after volume of inane jingle which has neither the soul nor the semblance of poetry? Mr. Sladen has no excuse for inflicting so much trash upon a long-suffering public. Here and there may be found evidence that if he took sufficient trouble he might produce verses which could be read without causing mental and physical distress to the reader; but such indications are rare. Judged by the great mass of his compositions in the volume before us he may well be taken as the exemplar of the pseudo-Australian school of pseudo-Australian poetry which must do so much -- if its efforts have any fruit at all -- to imperil the reputation of colonists for taste, common sense -- nay, even for sanity. We are, unfortunately, unable to say which of the many pieces in the volume before us would be in Mr. Sladen's opinion a good specimen of his powers, but we can hardly be wrong if we take the title-poem as a fair example. Here are some lines. It will be noticed that this is not a rhymed measure ; neither is it blank verse :--  

   A poetry of exiles -- we are exiles
   From the heirlooms and cradle of our race,
   Its hallowed scenes of trials and of triumphs,
   Its battlefields, its castles, and its graves.
   We cannot go to some thatch-roofed farmhouse
   Or garret in a ruin overhanging
   The high street of a mediaeval town,
   And say, "'Twas here that first his eyes saw light
   Who won the famous victory," or pause,
   With head uncovered, by the battered tomb
   Of one who gave a nation liberty.

Now, what is there in this that could not have been said just as well in prose? What is there that might not just as well have been left unsaid? The metrical system has not yet been discovered which will enable the reader to scan these lines with any degree ot comfort to himself. Walt Whitman has written a poem which contains verses wholly composed of the names of towns strung together without connectives. We now acknowledge that he might have inflicted upon us something still more unmusical. Here are some expressions and lines taken at random as we turn over the leaves. What does Mr. Sladen mean when he says--

               See the leagues of corn
   From Adelaide's broad bosom to honest labour born? 

We grant him "leagues of corn" as the privilege of poets to use loose English, but "Adelaide's broad bosom" is rubbish. We don't grow wheat in our streets, and the expression would be not a bit more poetical were he to say "South Australia's bosom." The climax of absurdity is reached when a sane man, with all his wits about him, can speak about leagues of corn being born from a bosom! Mr. Sladen will, we hope, be duly grateful to us for in some measure aiding him to reach the goal of his ambition. Here are some lines taken from an address "To Longfellow and America:"--    

   I think that the noblest future for an Austral bard would be
   To become to all Australia what thou wast across the sea:
   To have her youth's flower round him in an University; 
   And to have the whole dominion ringing with his poetry.
   Such is my heartfelt ambition, bright and distant as, a star,
   Possible, as God ordaineth all things, yet how far, how far?
   I can but with eye unfalt'ring fixed upon the lofty goal
   Struggle upward, purifying with the very toil my soul. 

We have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Sladen does struggle, and we have every wish to believe that he purifies his soul; but is this the best way to go about it? The last verse of this same piece is refreshing in its generosity-

   Take this tribute that I offer for thy mighty sleeping son;
   Take it freely, for I love thee as if I myself were one
   Of thy sons and his alumni, in the body as in will;
   Would that I could come to lay it where his wearied head lies still.

We have already dwelt more upon "A Poetry of Exiles" than its intrinsic worth warrants. In fact, from the perusal we have given the volume, the only compositions that contain some tolerably good rhymes, linked to a fair amount of common-sense ideas, are "To Australia" and "A Bush Flower." If space were not a consideration we might lay almost every page in the book under contribution for examples of either no thought, pure nonsense, or bad verses. We cannot, however, omit to quote a piece entitled "Adelaide."

   Five miles out from the Semaphore the ship at anchor lies,
   Steam up, about to bid adieu to our dear native skies.
   So far her course has hugged the shore, but when she sails to-night
   She'll stand out for the open sea from the Great Austral Bight.
   It was not until Adelaide was sinking out of view
   That all the lonely bitterness of leaving home we knew,
   But when the last Australian port was fading on our lee,
   Then! not till then, we realized that we were on the sea.
   Adieu, dear native skies, adieu! It will be long ere we
   Meet other skies as mild and bright where'er on earth we be.
   Adieu, dear native land! adieu, home of our childhood's joy,
   And home of freedom, peace, and mirth, without the base alloy
   Of want and sin that poverty and crowded millions bring
   To the beloved and puissant isle from which we boast to spring;
   Our home, where every man may have his cottage or his farm
   And, unconcealed, hold any creed he chooses with- out harm.
   Fare you well, Adelaide, farewell ! Just as we leave your shore
   Hundreds are floating to your quays to share the bounteous store
   You have for every willing hand which breaks your fertile soil,
   A proper palm for honesty and certain crown for toil.

This "poem" scans execrably, and closer inspection shows its absurdity. The reader will notice that it is the ship at anchor which is about to bid Adelaide adieu. In the first verse she is still at anchor; in the next she has started on her voyage. Probably the last two lines of that verse are a mystic way of telling us that the ship was beginning to roll, but how and where does Mr. Sladen expect to '"meet other skies"? What does he mean by --

  And, unconcealed, hold any creed he chooses with out harm?

Does every man in Adelaide hold his creed without harm, or is it his creed that is without harm, or does he choose without harm? And, next, whom might he or it harm -- himself, the creed, or his neighbour? "A proper palm for honesty" is good, but it has no particular meaning. And what about the hand which breaks fertile soil? Touchstone, when criticising Orlando's poetry, said, "I'll rhyme you so eight years together -- dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted; it is the right butter-woman's rank to market.' It may be rather dangerous to say so, but we cannot forbear asserting that there is nothing to prevent anybody from being an "Austral bard," a la Mr. Sladen. Here is a "mere trifle," "an ill- favoured thing, but mine own," which we have much pleasure in offering to Mr. Sladen for the second edition of his book. It might be called "Adelaide's Reply," and would run thus:--

   Fare you well, Sladen, O, farewell! Just as you leave our shore
   Hundreds are praying for your sake that you poetize no more.
   You have a sadly nimble pen, which wounds our gentle heart --
   A silly trick of scribbling which has no regard for art.
   

First published in The South Australian Register, 17 April 1884

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

THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING BULLETIN.

Sir,-There has been some talk in London about New South Welshmen wishing to change the name of their colony. If it be true Aurora -- Dawn, or Auroria -- Land of Dawn, might be offered as a suggestion for the renaming, just as Italy was called Hesperia, i.e., land of the evening star (Hesperus). New South Wales has then, at any rate, substantial claims to be considered the "Land of Dawn."

(1). It is the furthest east of the continental possessions of the Empire upon which the sun never sets.

(2). As the mother of all the Australian colonies, she is the Dawn-land of the Greater Britain in the Antipodes.

(3). In Australia, first of the continents of the world, there has been no war and no want. This may fairly be called the dawn of the Millennium -- the promise of a new epoch for the world, and in New South Wales as the oldest colony this new dawn of course began.

Douglas B. W. Sladen

First published in The Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 22 November 1887

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

Reprint: The Art and Humor of Hal Gye by C. J. Dennis

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In this article Mr. C. J. Dennis, the well-known author, pays a tribute of friendship to Mr. Hal Gye the noted "Bulletin" artist and cartoonist, whose work helped to make"'The Sentimental Bloke" famous throughout Australia. The services of Mr. Gye have been secured by News Limited, and he will arrive in Adelaide next week.

"A philosopher is a man who sits in an easy chair and lectures upon how to sit in easy chairs to a man who hasn't one."-- Hal Gye.

This remark, flung casually at a self-satisfied friend who had been deploring at length the strange unrest of the masses, illustrates one phase of Hal Gye's many-sided nature. He is something of a philosopher himself, but an easy chair is certainly not his native habitat.        

Rather, calling to mind his work in a dozen Australian papers, one is led to picture him as a restless spirit, skipping from point to point, cracking jokes and tickling ribs till the gravest cannot forbear to smile. Then he pauses to deliver a mock-serious epigram upon the folly of laughter, and departs with a chuckle to spread merriment elsewhere. Puck is his playmate. And, without malice, they whisper together in odd corners and devise fresh japes for the entertainment of a weary world.

Had he lived in earlier years I can imagine Hal Gye only as a brilliant court jester who died suddenly at a very early age after having caricatured the King, made an epigram about the Prime Minister, and written fantastic verse upon the manners of the court. Even the dainty watercolor, done to please the beautiful princess, would not have saved him. Kings are notoriously humorless.                                

Fortunately for Hal, the average Australian has a keen sense of humor, and it is mainly as a humorous artist in black-and-white that he has won an enviable reputation in this country and beyond.  

South Australia Gains Great Artist.

When he goes to Adelaide to take his new position as chief artist on "The News" South Australia may congratulate itself upon having gained at the expense of the rest of the Commonwealth. 

For many years his pictures have appeared regularly in "The Bulletin" and other Australian journals. His work as a book illustrator is widely known, and if his watercolors and colored-drawings have not won equal recognition it is because of a queer modesty that will not permit the humorist to display the work of his more serious moments. Even his most intimate friends have seen but few of these dainty pictures which possess a poetic feeling rare even in the work of much better known colorists. Some of his colored book illustrations (those done for "The Glugs of Gosh") are hung in the Sydney National Gallery; a few private collectors possess examples of his work, but otherwise Gye the artist in color has yet to arrive.

It is as an artist in black-and- white that he is best known, and in this class of work his caricatures and cartoons are the most popular. His gift for swift caricature is indeed remarkable. Never deliberately cruel or offensive (except maybe to the super-sensitive or the ultra-vain), they manage to catch so much of the subjects' real character -- that indefinite "some- thing" which is so elusive to the average painstaking artist -- that they become not merely distorted portraits, but true character studies achieved in a spirit of pure fun. I doubt if there is another artist in Australia to-day who can accom- plish this quite so well as Hal Gye.

His cartoons -- political, sporting, and whatnot -- have much of the same spirit. Never labored and certainly never dull, they express a light-hearted gaiety that is too often lacking in the work of many another artist who designedly sets out to be mechanically humorous.

Spontaneity is their keynote; he catches humor as it flies, and emeshes it in quaint lines before it has time to escape.

Hal Gye began work in-- of all places on earth -- a solicitor's office in Melbourne. The Law of Torts and the artistic temperament failed, however, to find much in common, and soon after Gye's employer and the head clerk and the most important client had been crudely caricatured on blotting pads relations became strained. Harold Neville Gye the law clerk was a lamentable failure, but after a year or two of study under the late Alec Sass, Hal Gye the artist began to be talked about. His quaint pictures appeared in various Australian papers, and when Will Dyson went to England Gye was naturally chosen to take his place as "The Bulletin's" theatrical caricaturist in Melbourne.

Publishing "The Sentimental Bloke."

It was about then that I first met him, and some years later, when I had completed "The Sentimental Bloke," I decided promptly that he was the one man to do the quaint illustrations I had in mind.

We foregathered and talked things over in his studio. The book had been already refused by two Melbourne publishers, and our hopes were not bright. Finally, I decided that if we could induce some kind publisher to issue a subscription edition of a few hundred copies we might reap a profit of ten or even fifty pounds.  

Very carefully we planned an elaborate "make-up" of the book, even to the title-page and wrapper, and sent it to Messrs. Angus & Robertson, of Sydney, with our suggestion for a modest subscription issue. Their reply was prompt brief, and dignified.  

"Dear Sir," they wrote, "We are publishers, not printers and binders."

But they immediately applied balm to our wounded dignity by suggesting a regular market edition of 5,000 copies, and a scale of fees for the artist far beyond the wildest dreams in the little back-street studio. The book was published shortly after that, and sold, to our bewilderment and, as the good Pepys has it, to our great content. Since then Hal Gye has illustrated every book I have published, besides those of many other writers, including "Banjo" Paterson and Will Ogilvie.

Except, perhaps, those he did for "The Glugs of Gosh," I like best of all Gye's quaint and dainty illustrations to "The Bloke." They have been reproduced in many places since, and their next appearance will be upon crockery from the pottery works of Messrs. Grimwade & Co., historic potters, of Stoke-on-Trent, in England.    

Among other distinction, Hal Gye holds that of being the only artist who has, with the full knowledge and consent of the Prime Minister, held up the business of Australia, while he sketched.    

It happened during the reign of William Morris the First. The Prime Minister had agreed, none too willingly, to pose upon the floor of the House during a sitting while Gye sketched him from the pressbox. A nod from the artist was to be the signal that the sketch was completed.

Thrice during his speech, the Prime Minister glanced hopefully toward the pressbox, only to be greeted by a ruthless headshake and a commanding frown. Thrice he obediently spoke on, tackling his subject from another angle and indulging new oratorical flights. Finally a gracious nod from the artist gave him release; he wound up with a fiery peroration, and sat down. And none among the Federal members knew at the time that they had listened for five minutes to that flowing Welsh oratory solely that an autocratic artist might be served.

I never have, though I should like to have, heard what Mr. Hughes thought of that caricature when it appeared. He, too, has a quaint sense of humor.

Gye's Quaint Philosophy.  

"The average man," says Hal Gye, "goes to work to earn money to buy his wife hats and dresses to keep her quiet while he goes to work to earn more money to buy her hats and dresses."    

Gye never goes to work. The result of his alleged labor too obviously bears evidence that he has had a thoroughly good time in its accomplishment. He would have you smile with him or at him, as you please, so long as you do smile. And the average man aforesaid may find in those drawings respite from that vicious circle and a bright spot in a workaday world.

On occasions, when drawing fails to carry on the fun, Gye has been known to break into verse. But rarely, and only when Puck suggests it. That airy trifle "Hot Summer Nights," published to "The Bulletin" some time ago, has by now become almost a classic. And there are others.

Adelaide is fortunate in securing the services of such a jester at her court. I feel that the queen will find no cause to frown, nor the Prime Minister any need to grow uneasy. Even the pageboys may. be permitted to titter, and the King, I hope, will never consider it expedient to order anything with boiling oil in it.

Still, if it be possible that there exists in Adelaide a citizen so seized with his own importance in the scheme of things, so obsessed with his own great work, with abnormal vanity that friendly advice cannot lessen nor gentle banter repress. I fear that he will have to submit to a measure -- a very mild measure, really -- of (what shall we say?) chastening candor.  Self-revelation is made easy when assisted by a Gye. I know. He has caricatured me.  

Still, he is ever gentle in his methods, and always prefaces the operation with the comforting remark, "Now, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you." 

First published in The Mail, 16 June 1923

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

Reprint: C. J. Dennis and His Verse by D.E.

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SELECTED VERSE OF C. J. DENNIS. Chosen and Introduced by Alec H. Chisholm. Angus and Robertson, Sydney.

Perhaps the most remarkable success-story in Australian writing is that of the late C. J. Dennis, told by his biographer, Mr. A. H, Chisholm, in an introduction to this selection of Dennis's verse.

In 1914 "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke" was rejected by a Melbourne publisher, so Dennis, in 1915, sent the manuscript to Angus and Robertson and said he was "pretty confident" of obtaining about three hundred subscribers for a five-shilling edition.

Angus and Robertson issued the book on their own judgment and sold 66,148 copies in eighteen months in Australia and New Zealand. Editions were also published in Britain, Canada and U.S.A., and the story was filmed and dramatised.

Ginger Mick, a cobber of The Bloke, was the subject of another small book of verse, which sold 42,349 copies in less than six months.

Here was success seldom achieved by poets. Other books such as the clever satirical "Glugs of Gosh," the children's book, "Roundabout," and sequels of "The Bloke" followed.

Now Mr. Chisholm, in his careful selection from Dennis's "nine books, a booklet and a leaflet," has given readers the chance to decide whether the large sales of 35 years ago were due to passing fancy or some universal and lasting qualities.

It seems likely that Dennis will still be very popular, for although his verse is only of slight literary value it has, especially in the vernacular verses, novelty of expression, salty humour, a pleasant rhythm, robust- ness, and the sentimentality that is often so obvious in the "tough guys" of literature, whether they be Melbourne larrikins or Hemingway's "he-men."

In addition, Dennis tells a story well.

Adult readers will find plenty of pungent satire in the fantasy of the dealings between the Glugs and Swanks of Gosh and the Ogs of Podge; while children reading "Cuppacumalonga" and "The Ant Explorer" will surely want to read other poems which Mr. Chisholm has not included in this selection, especially "The Long Road Home," "The Band," "Hist!" and "You and I."

Naturally the first poem in the book is the famous "Australaise," so popular with Diggers in World War I.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 February 1951

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

Reprint: The Novel in Australia by Nettie Palmer

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Let it be granted from the outset that the number of good novels written in Australia has been small There are causes for this, mostly discreditable though not all discreditable to the same people; there is no time to discuss these causes now. What I wish to demonstrate is that if we reduce our list of good Australian books to a minimum leaving only the best what we reach is a nugget of surprisingly high quality.

Some Early Nuggets  

The novel in Australia has proceeded not in an even jog, but perhaps more suitably by a series of kangaroo hops. Taking "Geoffrey Hamlyn," Henry Kingsley's book, written with a very colonial outlook, but genuine for the period as the first of our novels, we can take with much more enthusiasm, "Robbery Under Arms," by Rolf Boldrewood, as our second. It is hard to say whether this remarkable book has received more good or harm from its title. Certainly this title has won it very many readers, who will not have felt cheated of what it made them expect for it is a rattling good story. Other possible readers, though, who would be interested and delighted by a genuine pastoral about early days in New South Wales, would never guess what pockets of quiet beauty lay in a book with such a truculent title. It is one of those rare books that can please on several different counts -- as an adventure story, as a sketched historical background, and as a sound psychological novel.  Here and there the moralising becomes a little too heavy for the tale to carry but most of it is caught up naturally in the even flow of the narrative, which is in fine and enexaggerated vernacular, without dropped aitches or other irritating apostrophes to spot its pages. Every one wants to have "Robbery Under Arms" in the house, and the only hindrance to this is that it is always being borrowed by people of all ages. It is a pity that for so long it has been published only in a paper-covered edition, and with small print, and misprints into the bargain. Boldrewood wrote a good many books afterwards but he is chiefly thanked and remembered for that one. When I think of good novels in Australia I like to think that most of them are not far from the line of development that would be suggested by reading "Robbery Under Arms."    

Some Successors

It was a long time before the simplicity and naturalness of that book was again reached. Boldrewood's own later books were affected by his consciousness that they were written for overseas publishers and public. Marcus Clarke's "The Term of His Natural Life," with all its glamorous power, was a "made" book. Then came Mrs. Campbell Praed, in the 'nineties, with her easy-flowing books now almost forgotten. Some of them, like "Longleat of Koralbyn," are set in Queensland, but the locale is only suggested by occasional dust and heat, and the writer shirks the whole problem of making her Queensland live in the readers' sight. The books might be set some Ruritania, a lively enough place, only non-existent.  

Meanwhile, Australia was developing few novelists, but a great many short story writers, of whom it is enough to name Louis Becke, Price Warung, Henry Lawson, and Albert Dorrington. For many years it has seemed that only short stories would ever be published again (and those only in fugitive form): any novels that appear have had every sort of circumstantial opposition to ovecome.

Novels After 1900

Past this opposition pushed Miles Franklin, with her one striking book, written about the age of 20, "My Brilliant Career.'' This bit of ironic autobiography, set in an up-country township of the drearier sort, was expected to lead to more, but Miles Franklin's actual career took her away from fiction to the offices of a Women's Labour Bureau, in Chicago. Perhaps some day she will be able to repeat her early success, looking through the opposite end of life's telescope. Her novel appeared about 1900, and soon after came Randolph Bedford's two novels, "True Eyes and the Whirlwind," and ''The Snare of Strength." The first is a novel of the picaresque type, a useful kind for expressing the nomadic youth spent by many Australians before they find their life work. It includes vivid glimpses of Broken Hill in the early days, a place something like the present Mt. Isa. "The Snare of Strength" passed from Parliament House, Melbourne, to a dairy-farming district, and to mining in North Queensland. Bedford's work is never without a fine gusto. A nearly forgotten novel, yet one that had a strong, if acrid, life of its own, was Barbara Baynton's "Human Toll," full of bush tragedy. As if to show that our life is full of varied aspects, came Louis Stone's "Jonah," a Sydney story of young larrikins, done with sincerity. Out-of-print, out-of-print that is what one has to lament about all these books! Many novels deserve to die in their year of birth, but what of those that have permanent quality? We can only beg for new editions.

A Novelist Abroad

So far the books mentioned have been written in Australia. Perhaps the best known novel written while its author was abroad is "Maurice Guest," by Henry Handel Richardson. Few readers would know that the author of that brilliant story of music-student life in the Leipzig of the 'nineties was Australian, but her subsequent books leave no doubt on the matter. "Maurice Guest," published in 1909, was revised in a fourth edition in 1922. Meanwhile, a great Australian trilogy had begun to appear, "The Fortunes of Richard Mahony," the author having revisited Australia about 1912 to verify impressions. The fortunes, at first very meagre, were laid first in the early mining days on Ballarat; the Eureka episode lightens on the skyline. Melbourne develops into "marvellous Melbourne." The decade of the 'seventies is passed, in the second volume, among the hurried opulence of newly-rich Melbourne. The third volume, not yet published, will carry on the dates and little further. The writer's knowledge of the period-costumes, food, and customs is immense but the "Fortunes" is never a mere costume novel: there is character all through. All Henry Handel Richardson's novels, even those whose setting is wholly Australian, are better known in Europe than here, and are discussed at length in German and Scandinavian literary encyclopaedias and reviews, In America too, they have received deep attention. Victoria is fortunate to have found such a chronicler, more fortunate than it knows as yet. Brisbane of the early days still awaits some such interpretation. Some future novelist will, perhaps, base his story on the splendid material in "Tom Petrie's Reminiscences."  

Contemporary Novels

Meanwhile, the thin but invigorating stream of novels by writers who have lived continuously in the country they describe has gone on. The books of Katherine Susannah Prichard, appearing at pretty wide intervals are the fruit of an intense devotion to her subject matter. Her gifts are mainly two: first, that of brilliant impressionism, then a rare power of writing group-scenes. One thinks of the opal miners in her second book, "Black Opal," standing about chaffing one another and discussing the universe, every man of them alive. Or, in her latest book, "Working Bullocks," there are the groups of timber-getters camped by the road for a smoke-oh, or the unforgettable, hot, timeless Sunday evenings   spent by a big bush family and its visitors on a veranda beside some trees of ripe loquats. Such scenes are too difficult for most novelists, who shirk them: yet they enrich a book immensely, and the reader feels that our everyday life is full of unsuspected charm. So far, Katharine Prichard's novels have been each set in a different spot of Australia -- the tall timber of South-east Victoria, the opal fields in Western New South Wales, and the sawmilling country in the south of Western Australia. It is said that her next locale will be the northern inland of Western Australia, a place very wild, very remote, and yet, seen from within, quite a complex commonwealth. (Reading over this list of regions I can only feel how wretchedly inconvenient our Australian names are: a mere mention of latitude and longitude! Are we too big to think about? It will take many years for many of our names to become easy and vivid.)  

There is little space left for some recent Queensland books. People will at least have a chance to see and hear of these during the next week's exhibition. Zora Cross' "Daughters of the Seven Mile" has lately been followed by a ''Sons of the Seven Mile," which is now available in book form. Such books put on record the changing years of a South Queensland district. The four novels of M. Forrest have that special quality which readers of her verse would expect -- a power of painting in words the rich details of Queensland's unexplored landscapes. A type of West Queensland station life that is rapidly passing away has been given in a simple and devoted picture by the author of "Cronulla," which appeared three years ago.

To me the most satisfactory definition of a good novel seems "the revelation of character through narrative," but the character need not be only human. There is also the character of a country. Every good novel perforce breaks up new ground -- the author is giving part of himself away, revealing his personal vision of "men, coming and going on the earth." As Mr. Randolph Bedford pointed out lately in a brilliant bit of satire, the average publisher likes words written to a formula, to please a public which dislikes anything new. "It loves to read some old friend it recognises, so that it can say, 'How original it must be, because I know it so well.' "

The really creative books I have mentioned have had another and a more genuine kind of originality. In making Australian life and character their theme they have had to overcome so many incidental difficulties that their impetus has had to be genuine and self-sustained all through, or it would have collapsed. Some day, when a novel about life in Indooroopilly seems as natural as one about Piccadilly, we shall thank those who turned the first sods so fruitfully.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 15 October 1927

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

Reprint: Australian Poetry: To the Editor of "The Mercury"

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Sir, - I have elsewhere called attention to the widely exaggerated estimate of our local verse on the part of a Sydney coterie, and their fierce resentment of English criticism. In the "Daily News" of September 14 there is a long and severe review of Mr. Essex Evans's "Secret Key." Some faint praise is given, but mostly the reviewer (Mr. John Maxefield), is very rough on Australian poetry as a whole. "As generally happens in a book of Australian poems, a full third of the 'Secret Key' is mere thundering rant, with no particular meaning, no sense of poetic style, only a delight in rapid movement, as though the writer were gotten upon a pegasus, and galloped full tilt, devil take the hindmost." Again, "He is not a poet, he is not a creator, he sees with an ordinary vision, he does not think, he does not deeply feel, but he has studied the art of writing, and can make his emotions plain, even musical." In all twenty-five lines are quoted in justification of praise or blame. Out of half a dozen long notices of Australian verse recently given in London papers, this is the most severe; and, though in a measure we have provoked it by such rejoinders as Mr. Baydon's in the Christmas number of Steele Rudd's magazine. I think it is unjustifiably severe.  

-Yours, etc.,  

J.B.

First published in The Mercury, 28 October 1907

Note: I'm unsure whether the "it" in the last sentence above referes to the English review or Mr. Baydon's rejoinder.

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

Reprint: Kendall's Poems - Letters to the Editor

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE EMPIRE.  

Sir,-I hope you will kindly insert these few lines, in the hope that they may exite some interest on a subject that really gives me concern. I, with several others (I believe), felt very sorry that the attendance last night at the Temperance Hall was so sadly scanty. This seems to have been greatly caused by an unpropitious evening having been chosen for Mr. Sheridan Moore's readings; but another great hindrance was, such a high price of admission having been asked, at least, for the best seats. Even that, perhaps, would have been met, had the claims to public notice here of the very interesting youth whose talents furnished, or were to furnish, the chief subject of the evening's entertainment, been put more forcibly before that public. In that case, many, as myself, would have gladly made an effort, and then the collection would have told a very different tale. Now, Sir, if Mr. Moore would be inclined to redeliver the readings, with a little attention to the above points, also trying to obtain the Temperance Hall for the bare expenses, much encouragement might be given, not merely to a worthy family, but also to the cause of our young men, thus aiding them in the prefermce of a careful cultivation of the talents with which Heaven has endowed them, to allowing them to run to waste on folly and dissipation. An attention to these few remarks will oblige.

Sir, yours respectfully,

18th April. A LOVER OF POETRY.

P.S.-Would not it do as well if Mr. Kendall would act as reader for his own works? 

First published in The Empire, 22 April 1861

And in response:

KENDALL'S POEMS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EMPIRE.  

SIR,-Allow me, partly by way of reply to the letter of "A Lover of Poetry" in your to-day's issue, and partly for the information of the public, to state that my discourse, not a mere series of readings as "A Lover of Poetry" hints, on the actual and probable poetry of Australia, had been advertised for three weeks before its delivery; that the prices were fixed to suit the means of every person disposed to support native literature -- to wit, 4s., 2s. 6d. and 1s.; and that it was never anticipated the visit of his Excellency the Administrator of the Government, to the Victoria Theatre, would have the effect of turning the current of native support away from my discourse. I am perfectly willing to re-deliver that discourse, or rather to make a better effort, if the public care to hear me. I should, indeed, prefer to hear Kendall read a selection from his own poems if the extreme sensibility of the gifted young man would allow him to do so; but Kendall happens to think far less of his poems than I do, a circumstance which will not detract from their merits or his character.

I am, &c., &c.,  

J. SHERIDAN MOORE. 

First published in The Empire, 23 April 1861

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

Reprint: Prefatory Remarks on The Sonnet by Charles Harpur

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The Sonnet is, perhaps, the best metrical form yet invented for the terse embodiment of any truth which is spherical by reason of its comprehensiveness, or which is great and general enough to be simple, and thence amenable to the brevity of treatment almost aphoristic. Nor is there any better form for the musical setting forth of any strikingly individual idea, or fact, or love-fancy. It is also eminently suitable as a vehicle for literary compliment, or biographical incident, and when spirited with the light of some memorable event, or by the stirring influence of some heroic name, it may indeed, as in the hands of Milton, become "a trumpet," and thence a fit medium for blowing "soul-animating strains" into the ears of all men.

But apart from its subject there must, in the mere construction and vehicular capacity of the Sonnet, be always exhibited an absolute mastery over means. This, I say, is an indispensable requirement, admitting of no incompleteness either of thought or expression;   no slip-slop, no inversion purely for rhyme's sake; not even one superfluous word. Its very metrical mode and set limits admit of no "beating about the bush." Nay, the subject of it must be handled so bravely and openly as to make directness of treatment a result inevitable. And thus a perfect sonnet will be as it were a microcosm -- whole in itself, both in form and spirit the spherical mould and integument of a spherical subject -- the one exactly enclosing the other, without either diffuseness or over compression, and so shutting it up for ever in a "measureful content."  

Moreover, the untransgressible limits of the sonnet often tend to induce that closeness of expression, and that sublimation of imagery which are proper to the highest kind of enduring poetry, namely, that kind which is suggestive rather than decscriptive, or which by a few select images, intensified in the putting, suggests infinitely more than could be circumstan- tially described, or otherwise than wearisomely; and which, therefore, while it amply recompenses the imagination of the reader, exercises it as well, and thereby quickens and strengthens it for direct conception upon its own account, or as an individual and self-sustained faculty. And, having, as I think, this tendency, of course these exact limits prevent in an equal degree that verbal delusion of the sense which is the besetting weakness of most modern writers, both in a verse and prose. Not but a well- phrased amplification in the manner of setting forth a thought may be sometimes advisable. If novel, or many-sided, or somewhat obscure from its very comprehensiveness, it may even demand a double draught of expression. But to flood it with words, however well chosen or elegant in themselves, is not to clarify, but simply to drown it. Nay, though in itself as vivid and nimble as a sunbeam, it may be dulled and deadened, like an ill-mixed potation, by a few irrelevant or superfluous words -- or even by one word, if it should happen to be at all repugnant as well as needless to the sense.

Ordinary readers object to the Sonnet on account of its shortness and individuality. It is not long enough, nor many-featured enough to produce, or minister to, popular excitement. With the modern novel -- pampered many it is only a poetic "nobbler"-- an apology for a dram. It has not grip enough for their coarse mental cravings - and apropos of this - A country Englishman was partaking of some fruit with members of a family of my acquaintance, which consisted of two sorts -- some nectarines of exquisite flavour, but singularly small, and a quantity of large slipstone peaches of so bad a quality as to be almost tasteless. But after demolishing two or three of the nectarines at a mouthful, the countryman was observed to give them up with a look of some disappointment, and devote himself exclusively to the peaches. He was asked the reason why-for, said his questioner, the nectarines are excellent, but the peaches scarcely eatable. "Ess," replied the clown, "the nectons be main good loike -- but then there be no grip on 'em." Quantity rather than quality was evidently the ticket for him. And the literary taste of those readers who cannot relish the Sonnet merely because it is short and one-thoughted, is every whit as rustical, not to say vulgar, as was this fellow's gastric appetite, all their pretensions to refinement notwithstanding.

In most of the ensuing sonnets the arrangement of the rhymes is somewhat different from the run of them in that form which has been adopted from the Italian poets by many of the best writers of the Sonnet in English. But in devising this different arrangement of the rhymes, I have been actuated by no mere desire to innovate upon a usage so imposingly established. In the pure Italian form the reduplication of the rhymes is upon the whole, as it appears to me, not only too distant, but too couplet- like in their recurrence, to tell thoroughly well; and to follow out this form, in one of its varieties, so far as to rhyme the ninth and fourteenth lines (as is often done by Wordsworth) is tantamount in English to not rhyming them at all. It is perceived to be a rhyme only by the eye -- and by the eye itself only upon trying back. On the other hand, the old English or Shaksperian mode of constructing the Sonnet is obviously defective in oneness, both as to artistic appearance and musical effect, it being indeed, but a series of three separate quatrains based upon a closing couplet. Hence the rhyme-arrangement in this form is manifestly an unsuitable one. It is not sufficiently carried through, inter-currently, to impress either the ear or the eye with a feeling of wholenes and homogeneity, however single-thoughted and individual in itself (when critically after-considered) may be the subject of the poem. Now the form in which the first three, and several other of the ensuing sonnets, are written, partakes somewhat of both the forms above referred to, and after having carefully tried it by my own ear, I do verily believe that it is a better compacted one than either, and altogether fitter for the English Sonnet, or rather the Sonnet in English.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 November 1866

You can read the 10 sonnets, which then followed this piece, here.

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

Sir, - A new generation blots out or forgets the one that is passing. This is particularly true of writers as individuals, yet by some curious requirement of the human mind writers are supposed to individually provide fertile tracts of personal story or anecdote to a greater degree than even painters. Sculptors are not in it with either, this perhaps because their art is more confined by rule, in spite of Epstein than the others. The field is already a full one in Australia, even though it is but a few years since Kendall wrote and Gordon rode. But the flower of the field will never be gathered unless we seriously begin to put on record what this one was and what that one said. Shakespeare is an example. Though a library has been written on him and his work, much of it is based on deduction, and who knows yet whether Shakespeare was Shakespeare or Bacon, Oxford, or someone else? Consequently I have suggested, as he is our outstanding poet and the son of one whose recollections had been collected for more than three quarters of a century, that Mr. Hugh McCrae be asked to give a series of talks or lectures, not so much on the books as on the personalities of writers as known to him, as well as on those recorded by his father. We want the living man and woman along with the written word as a part of our national remembrance.

For instance, we could never know why Conrad wrote his remarkable yet confined English unless we were aware that he was a Pole and therefore had a definition of English based on a first knowledge of Polish -- a knowledge that gave fluidity to the otherwise constricted.

Consequently, with your permission, I put forward my suggestion publicly in the hope that others will support it.

I am, etc.,  

Mary Gilmore

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 December 1929.


[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]
Sir - The Prime-Minister has ridiculed effectively the quaint charges of pro-Comunist bias splattered against the Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Literary Fund in Parliament by Messrs. Keen and Wentworth. Without exposing in detail the garbled inaccuracies of our local McCarthys, may I, as a member of the Board, add a few simple facts?
      

1. As a matter of principle, in aiding Australian literature by the grant of literary fellowships and the sponsoring of books for publication, the Advisory Board makes its recommendations to the Fund Committee solely on grounds of literary merit. The political opinions of the writers are quite irrelevant, and are treated as such. I can vouch for the fact that in seven years' service on the Board I have never once known such political considerations influence its literary decisions.      

2. It would be impossible to operate the literary Fund except on the basic principle of the complete freedom and integrity of Australian writers.            

3. Writers aided by the Fund have naturally held a wide variety of political opinions -- Right, Centre, and Left, including Communist. As a matter of fact, from 1940 to 1952 the Fund has awarded 50 literary fellowships, and only in 5 cases, to the best of my knowledge, the holders may be Communists, i.e. one out of every ten. Since 90 per cent of the fellowship holders have been non-Communists, the allegation that the Board has been biassed and given special preference to Communists is obvious nonsense.    

4. Its absurdity is proved even more strikingly when we note that, of the 30 books published with the Fund's sponsorship since 1940, in not one single case has the author or editor been Communist.        

5. Not only are there no Communists on the Board itself, but in any case the final decisions upon its recommendations are made by the Committee of the Fund, consisting of Mr. Menzies, Sir Arthur Fadden, Dr Evatt, and Mr. Scullin. The charge that these gentlemen direct "pro-Communist" propaganda answers itself.  

6. Within its limited sphere the Fund has done, as Mr. Menzies indicated, valuable service for Australian literature. It has made possible the writing or publication of books which are important contributions to our poetry, novel, short stories, drama, descriptive writting, biography, and scholarship. Its Pocket Library Series made available a variety of books that would probably not have been otherwise reprinted. It would be a tragedy if political ebullitions were allowed to interfere in any way with its literary functions.

7. Finally, it might be added that members of the Advisory Board devote substantial time and labour to its work. This is especially true of its Chairman, Mr. Vance Palmer, who has a very long and honorable record of unselfish service to Australian literature in addition to his outstanding achievement as a creative writer, critic, and exemplar of the highest literary standards. In contrast, moreover, with Government advisers in economics, censorship, and other fields, the Board members have freely given their services as literary advisers for years without any payment. They may reasonably object, however, to their present reward of calumny, however Gilbertian to those who know the facts.  

T. INGLIS MOORE.

First published in The Canberra Times, 2 September 1952

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

Reprint: Hugh McCrae: Poet and Author by D. P. McGuire

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He is tall, and his grizzled hair is greying, and he has a great power of joy in him and a great gentleness. It is difficult sometimes to believe that he is a man with physical bonds and physical necessities; one believes in fairies when one knows him, and one believes, too, in those things which Arnold spoke, sweetness and light. And yet he is very human. One hears his mighty shout of laughter, and sees him holding up all the people in Pitt street, while he enjoys a huge joke; his length doubled across the footpath, his arms poised like birds. I do not think I have ever known any one who enjoyed a joke as much as Hugh McCrae; and no one who has learnt the art of life so fully and finely. He is not a rich man; he is probably very poor, but be is unbelievably endowed with quips and cranks and jollities, and deep, enduring joy that cheats the angels.        

I met him first in an office. I went in with fear and trepidation, expecting to be reviewed in order by some dour and solemn editor. McCrae was the editor. He came in, and I am sure that his embarassment was greater than mine. We fidgeted together, he with a bundle of manuscripts, I with my hat. There were little, intermittent bursts of speech, and long, awkward silences. It lasted a whole 10 minutes. Then suddenly we got over it. I do not know why, but I think it was some glow from the man's spirit. I felt warmed and happy in a very strange way. We marched off down the street, we went to lunch, we marched back up the street, we yelled at one another so that people turned to stare at us. It was four days before I realized that I had some matter of business to settle with him.  

Hugh McCrae is the most exquisite writer we have known in Australia. A poet of ardent sensibilities, and a delightful grace of utterance, he will be remembered as some of the early English poets are remembered, by those who rejoice in pure light and undefiled diction, and the clear song that is like bird's voices.

   Here will I lie
   Under the sky,   
   Green trees above me,
   All birds to love me . . .
   Nature and I.   

   Wish me good den
   And leave me then . . .
   This sweet forest wind   
   Is more to my mind       
   Than cities or man.

   And in the morn I will see born
   That does dappled young,
   Whose father was sung
   To death by the horn.

   Here will I lie
   Under the sky,
   Green trees above me,
   All birds to love me,
   Nature and I.

The whole is a perfect ''lyric cry;" and the third verse especially, is as faultless as Shelley's

   "He will watch from dawn to gloom
   The lake-reflected sun illume
   The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom."

Prose.    

McCrae is one of our first masters of prose, too. No one in English literature has come nearer in spirit and method to Yorick Sterne. Naivette and subtlety, sentiment and a sudden, swift gleam of intellectual passion temper his expression; and though he, himself, declares that he has only a gift for phrasing, and that his argument wavers, his prose is crystal-clear and steel-sure.  

Nothing better than the 'Du Poissey Anecdotes" has been done in Australia. I sincerely doubt that any English book in the manner has been better done since the eighteenth century. Yet the volume is almost unobtainable. I am told that a great number of copies have been destroyed -- because there was no sale for them. And the book shows a freshness and savour, a sauvity and charm, a delicate sophistication that no living writer approaches. I open it entirely at ran-dom.  

"On Wednesday, October 4, Du Poissey and I took boat and rowed up the river to Cropley Lock, where we dined under the tree; upon buttered chickens and orange marmalade.

All at once, in the middle of our meal, he looked up, and, pointing with his finger to the sky, exclaimed:-"Do you see the cloud that's almost in shape like a camel?"            

Whereupon I, not to be outdone, replied in the words of Polonius:-- "By the Mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed."

"Methinks it is like a weasel", quoth Du Poissey.      

"'It is backed like a weasel," said I.  

"Or," continued Du Poissey, "like a whale?"

"Very like a whale," exclaimed I, and burst into a fit of laughing.

"Sir," said he, "this is most childish . . . can it be possible that you have no opinions of your own?"  

"Why," I replied, "these are neither your opinions nor my opinions. They are not even the opinions of Shakespeare, but the opinions of Hamlet and Polonius."

"Sir,'' said Du Poissey, "I quoted nobody. What has happened is simply this:- Looking up in the air just now I saw a curious cloud, which I remarked upon as being a little like a camel; you immediately agreed with me; but, because I had doubts of your sincerity, I now pretended that the cloud had taken the formation of a weasel and you had the assurance to say so too.This kiss-breach kind of conversation would serve to madden a saint, yet I was not unwilling to give you another chance, wherefore I declared the cloud --"

My patience having come to an end, I would not allow him to continue, but, looking at him very fiercely over some buttered chicken, challenged him to say another word.        

He grew silent in a moment, and a little later expressed his sorrow, "not that I have been rude to you, but that you have been rude to me." I am afraid the quotation is a long one; but it will convey more of the significant savour of McCrae's writing, than a dissertion of mine.

It is, perhaps, a sufficient justification for an Australian authors' week, that this jolly book should have passed with notice from no more than a score or so of McCrae's countrymen. It makes one desperate. All about us, we hear opinionated ignorance talking of our art with a dreadful air of despair; deploring the barrenness of the natives; and neglecting a writer who is conceivably of a very high rank, and is certainly of that class for whom an especially delectable corner of Elysium has been reserved, because they have been gentle and kind, and have lived only with beauty. 

First published in The Register, 10 September 1927

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

Reprint: Enchanted World Of Hugh McCrae

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"The Ship of Heaven," by Hugh McCrae. (Angus and Robertson, Sydney. 21/-).

Seventy years ago, in
Hugh McCrae's father's time, a trifle like this would have been served up as a pantomime, in which form it would have been a huge success, and printed -- if printed at all -- on cheap paper, unbound, and sold for a shilling at the show. It would have been sentimentally remembered for a year or two and forgotten thereafter.

Why should we be expec
ted to take "The Ship of Heaven" seriously as poetry? Certainly it is full of a whimsy flimsy Hughie McCraesiness which is delightful in a fairy-moonlight-and-spoilt-boy mood. And Mr. McCrae has a ready sense of the theatre, plays charmingly with notions, writes first-rate verse when he wants to, and has the right sense of music and mystery. But it is all so eighteen-eightyish! There would not be a hope in life of any commercial company taking on a thing like this, even if the Independent Theatre did put it on in Sydney-- with music by Alfred Hill-- and the effect was charming (it may have been).

There is a solemn aspect
to this. Mr. McCrae has his followers and they are idolaters. True, his best work has appeared, and we ought not to expect more of it. But this is a sentimental descent, and there was always too much sentimentality in his poetry. If Australian readers respond to this kind of appeal, then it means not merely that they have failed to progress in half a century or more: it means that they have regressed. For in 1880 or 1890 they would have known how to value a performance like "The Ship of Heaven."

First published in The Advertiser, 15 September 1951

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

Reprint: Our Own Writers: O'Dowd, the Questioner by Nettie Palmer

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Who was to gather up the two strands of life in Australia -- which I have perforce called the belltoppers and the moleskins -- and make from them something new? Who was to show us as a coherent group instead of fugitive colonials? Such questions are answered by the name of a poet whose great work has been to put revealing questions. Through all his books Bernard O'Dowd makes demands and challenges. His first book, with its austere, democratic chants in the barest of ballad stanzas, was called not "Downward," as printers so often have it, but "Dawnward?" the query being not only in the title, but wistfully pervasive:

   Flames new disaster for the race
   Or can it be the Dawn?

His earliest and most famous sonnet, "Australia," which has been strangely described as aggressively patriotic, deserves rather to be called an ode written in time of doubt:

   Last Sea-Thing dredge by Sailor Time from space,
   Art thou a drift Sargasso, where the west
   In halcyon calm rebuilds her fatal nest,
   Or Delos of a coming Sun-God's race?

Not much positive swashbuckling there. Indeed, throughout his questioning poems that have appeared over several decades, O'Dowd is hardly more confident about this Terra Australis Incognita than was Robert Burton, three centuries before him. Burton, too, suggests both sides: "Antipodes (which they made it a doubt whether Christ died for)"; and "whether that hungry Spaniard's discovery of the Unknown South Land be as true as his of Utopia .... it cannot choose but yield in time some flourishing kingdoms to future ages." For the matter of our being antipodes -- "the underworld," as the Oxford Dictionary condenses it -- O'Dowd uses a gesture of some warmth. Aware, as a child or a scientist is, that a ball has no up or down, he laughs, with a moment's swagger, at the traditional north, the top of the map, from which all blessings must for ever drop down. Cannot the south, perhaps, prove a source of renewal?

   Antipodeon? Whew! We are the top,
   The fountain . . . .

So begins the sextet of a brilliant sonnet in the fourth of his books, "The Seven Deadly Sins." But it is in the fifth book, "The Bush," with its single, long poem in a striking ten-line stanza of his own, that O'Dowd has put his questions about Australia at full length; solemnly, whimsically, now by allusion, now by sensitive and powerful descriptive passages; again and again with the movement of high poetry, so that, as cannot be shown here in this crumble of prosy comment, the ideas are "carried alive into the heart by passion."

A Significant Link

This questioner-poet brought to his ever-growing task a hoard of curious learning and an almost tactile sensitiveness to a landscape that had hardly begun to be frankly seen and recorded in words. In possessing these two gifts, one recondite, the other intimate, he recalls, not for the first time, the Irish poet A.E., whose twin passions for agriculture and for Hindoo religions have been hit off by James Joyce in a satirical dramatic passage of "Ulysses." Joyce pictures A.E. as a fantastic mythical figure exclaiming "Patsypunjaub!" and so expressing the two sides of his being. O'Dowd, firmly based in the realities of the land that bred him, yet having his head in "The Silent Land," with its overtones, linked the academic writers and the bush bards. Drawing down upon Australia in "The Bush" all the Utopian prophecies,

    Bacon foretold her, Campanella, More,  

He is aware, too, of our yearly spectacle, north to south,

   ..... the Wattle River, rolling,
   Exuberant and golden towards the sea;

O'Dowd weaves past and present into patterns that are continually repeated, yet never the same. He has shaped his urgent questions over and over, never content with a single answer. Is this unknown south land, indeed, to give flourishing kingdoms to succeeding ages? Then what is a flourishing kingdom? Is it perhaps like this?

   There, lazy fingers of a breeze have scattered
      The distant blur of factory chimney smoke
   In poignant groups of all the young lives shattered
      To feed the ravin of a piston-stroke!

What is a flourishing kingdom to be?

   No corsair's gathering ground, no tryst for schemers
      No chapman Carthage to a huckster Tyre,
   She is the Eldorado of old dreamers,
      The Sleeping Beauty of the world's desire!

But here arises a question of another sort. Beauty? In his curious and brilliant preface to Gordon's poems, Marcus Clarke wrote, "In Australia alone is to be found the grotesque, the weird, the strange scribblings of Nature learning how to write" -- no other beauty. Was Barron Field's horrible old verse wrong in granting that this fifth part of the earth was redeemed, from that utter failure with which he had forced it to rhyme? And was Aldous Huxley right in his instructive use of an Australian phenomenon for a mere gruesome measurement of time?

   The time of waiting began. Each second the earth travelled 25 miles and the prickly pear
   covered another five rods of Australian ground. 

Macabre, grotesque, unlovely to alien eyes;- that was Australia. O'Dowd accepts Clarke's challenge, recognises the degree of honesty in his vision, shares it and transcends it. Without reluctance, he upholds the tragic quality in the land- scape that has confronted him since his birth:

   Out of the heights what influence is pouring
   Thin desolation on your haunted face? 

Again he dreads that alien forces should seek

   To drown the chord or purifying sorrow
   Born ere the world, that pulses through your trees.

Born ere the world. With such a statement O'Dowd meets the more serious and persistent charge that is made against a new country, especially against the newest of all -- the simple charge of being new. Chesterton and Belloc, for instance, in book after book, have casually mentioned an "a priori" detestation of us as crude, empty, dull. At best we are to such onlookers a bad joke; but no, they would never subject themselves to the pangs of looking on. At most, they may now glance at America, which certainly started off before us; and what do they see there?

Perhaps Herny James could still tell them, with another of his comprehensive sighs. (And for America let us read, again, "Australia.")  

   There is in America no State in the European sense of the word, No sovereign, no court, no
   personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no
   county gentleman, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country houses, nor
   parsonages, nor thatched cottages, nor ivied   ruins; no cathedrals, not abbeys, nor little
   Norman churches; no great universities, nor public schools; no literature, no novels, no
   museums, no pictures, ...

This was written perhaps 50 years ago, but we are still much newer than America was then. The charge is valid: a new country has none of the mellow gifts of age. How, then, can it live?

A Whimsical Discussion

It is a poet who answers, moving on a plane where Time is not the mere calen- dar. "For Troy hath ever been," and the great themes of human love and   strife reappear

   Across each terraced aeon Time hath sowed
   With green tautology of vanished years.

That tautology, that strange inevitable repetition, can save us. "The towers that Phoebus builds can never fall." But here, in the poem, the argument rather shifts, and the verse from being a poetic utterance becomes a discussion, whimsical and bizarre. To one who looks back from that great day when we shall all be contemporaries together, this newest continent, says the poet, will seem no younger than Babylon. Readers of the future will readily confuse Euripides with the Australian, Gilbert Murray, his translator; they will confuse "Elzevir," the Australian critic, with Longinus who counselled Zenobia.... The verses become full of names, sometimes wittily handled; but it was :Elzevir" himself who protested, when "The Bush" first appeared, that he was like a fly in amber -- but in the cloudier part of superb amber, he might have added. For those wayward and cloudy stanzas in this poem are outnumbered by others of a golden clarity; and in many passages O'Dowd's almost legal statements of both sides, both possibilities, have given a profundity that this poet could achieve in no other way.

The questioning poet, O'Dowd has been accustomed to remember the phrase of one who guided his youth, Walt Whitman. 'The poet is the Answerer." The man of law, O'Dowd, may well have remembered that it is only by the zig-zag of questions that you arrive at a verdict. He leads toward our answer. 

First published in The Argus, 23 February 1935

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: More Than a Poet by T. Inglis Moore

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Sir. -- Since Bernard O'Dowd died a few weeks ago, may I, as a memorial tribute, supplement Dr. Todd's interesting lecture on O'Dowd by touching on a few aspects of the poet which he expressly excluded from his formal survey.  

O'Dowd was more than a fine poet. He was a significant figure who has historical importance in two ways. He was the first Australian poet to be an intellectualist and thus founded the tradition of an Australian poetry of ideas which was continued by Brennan, Baylebridge and FitzGerald. He was also the prophetic spokesman of his age, the era we call "the nineties." He expressed passionately its faith in democracy, social justice, and the Utopian dream of a great Australia in the future. Speaking for his contemporaries, Professor Walter Murdoch praises O'Dowd's "songs of democracy that stirred us like trumpets in the opening years of the century." O'Dowd was one of the foremost creators of a national tradition that his influenced Australian thought and literature ever since.  

Certain weaknesses of O'Dowd's earlier poetry, such as rhetoric and a limited verse form were justly pointed out by Dr Todd. There defects were, of course, recognised by critics of O'Dowd's day and discussed in my own study of O'Dowd. It is fair to add, however, that the tendency to generalise shown by O'Dowd is the same as that shown by English poets of the eighteenth century. So, too O'Dowd had, like Pope, a gift of expressing abstract ideas in striking epigram. He had none of Pope's technical perfection but was a more original thinker. Poetry or not, in both cases this epigrammatic expression is excellent writing in its genre. In O'Dowd's work it showed acute intellect at work and an unusual breadth of thought.  

It is starting the wrong hare of course, to discuss whether O'Dowd was a "great poet," since no reputable critic -- and least of all, the modest and unaffected poet himself -- ever claimed such a title for him. "Great poets" are rare. They do not grow on gooseberry bushes. There have been none in Australia, and in England during this contury there have been possibly only two - Yeats and Eliot. O'Dowd at his best -- and a poet must be judged by his best work, not his lapses -- was a fine poet. That is enough. This assessment is accepted generally in Australian literature.

Indeed, it goes wider, since some of the strongest tributes to O'Dowd came from the American critic, Hartley C. Grattan, who praised O'Dowd as one of the four outstanding literary representatives of his epoch, a significant figure in Australia, and the creator of "powerful poetry." In his later work O'Dowd sang with a true lyrical impulse. Instead of rhetoric, he used simple language, varied verse forms, and flexible rhythms. The best parts of "The Bush," the sonnets, and "Alma Venus," like the earlier "Young Democracy," are excellent poetry by the strictest standards.

The fiery personality of Bernard O'Dowd, the idealist and the crusader, made itself felt in his earlier days. When I knew him in his later years I was struck by his mellow wisdom, tolerance, and lovable charm. Above all, one felt in him the sincere nobility of mind expressed so forcibly in his poetry. We have been honoured in having such a fine spirit as one of the makers of the Australian tradition.

First published in The Canberra Times, 7 October 1953

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

Reprint: Observation as an Art: An Open Mind by Nettie Palmer

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The happiest people I know, at any age of life, are those who can observe and be startled by what they see or hear. Some people, so the intelligence testers tell us, are of a mental age of 14, and stay there, never developing nor learning. Very sad, of course, but to me it is even sadder to see people, who, while apparently quite well educated and intelligent, cannot notice anything for themselves. They would be happier and live more richly if their minds were, in a sense, emptier and more receptive. "I had rather forge than furnish my mind," said Montague (though I can never manage to find where he said it). Well, the forging of the malleable mind should be a continuous process: on the other hand, the minds that are furnished with conventional "suites" and the kind of pictures that are sold with dining-room sets are soon over-full. Windows and doors are shut to protect these precious possessions from dust and robbers. There is no entrance for new ideas or interests. Some minds are permanently furnished in this way at an incredibly early age. I would suggest that they need the alternation treatment: to be flung into a melting-pot and forged, over and over again. The melting-pot is, of course, life, experience, art as an interpretation of life. How many people can experience life and its revelations? I am not speaking, for the moment, of what we call deeper revelations, given to a poetic mind; but how many can even, without prejudice, observe?

Bad Observation.

To observe is to surrender to your environment, letting it show you what it can. Most observers are not passive enough. They put a landscape or a city or a group of people through some test of comparison, instead of taking it for what it is. They look at some wild landscape and contrast it, not with some other virgin region (if they must draw a contrast), but with some idyllic, cultivated, possibly unvisited spot. I have heard people say that the Bon Accord Falls, in the Blackall Ranges, were not as beautiful as a cherry orchard in Kent, which, incidentally, they had never seen. I don't quarrel with them for admiring imagined cherry orchards, if that refreshed their mind; but I feel that, when faced with the rich glooms of the Bon Accord precipices and forest, they already had enough to fill their minds for the time. It is hard, indeed, to concentrate steadily on any wonderful experience so as to carry it with us afterwards as a pure vision:

   For each day brings its petty dust
      Our soon-choked minds to fill,
   And we forgot because we must
      And not because we will.

But when we allow our impressions to be blurred in the beginning by making irrelevant comparisons, the "petty dust" has all too easy a task: There is almost nothing for it to cover up.

So much for the registering of beauty. What about observation as applied to matters of what is called every-day interest? How many of us can know what to look for if we go to a new place which has a civilisation unlike our own? Can we go with a mind open enough to guess at the essential quality of what we see; or are we merely intent on measuring, let us say, Italy or Ceylon, by our own habitual standards of what is important in daily life? Lately, I was reading some travel notes by the solid American novelist, Theodore Dreiser, Dreiser, whose chief quality has always been that of a detailed registrar of American life, if any one has appeared objective, unbiassed, coldly observant; Dreiser has been so; that was in America, But now he goes to Russia, not as a novelist, but as a journalist, and writes his impressions. The first batch of them that I saw contained a long, pained account of living in some Moscow flat, where he had to go right to the bottom of the building for his bath. From this he drew the darkest conclusions as to Russia's psychology and future. Excellent; but if he had lived, in the same, inquiring way, in London, he would have found London County Council model flats where, in a group of buildings containing hundreds of flats, there was simply no bathroom at all. Not that that proves anything in particular either; there was water laid on, with basins, and there were some public baths not far away. But Dreiser would logically need to apply the same type of American plumber's test to all countries instead of merely to Russia. In London he would never think of making such a test. There-fore I say he was observing the wrong things about Russia; he was losing that power of detached observation that had been his at home in America. He condemns many things in American life, yet accepts its standards after all, as against those of any country that he sets out to study. He is like a mother who scolds her own little boy with steadiness and vigour, but after all thinks there are no other little boys in the same street with him. This does not make her a good iudge of the others; she is not seeking out their essential qualities, whatever they may be. She is merely saying that her Freddie never does that or this. No, the first rule for an observer is surely that he must keep an open mind, or as open as possible. One does not go to Italy for advanced methods in plumbing and central heating, nor to America for ancient palaces, nor to Russia for punctuality, nor to France for the cloudy variety of philosophy. Figs from thistles ? No, nor mangoes from apple trees. If this is all very trite, once I write it down, is it not also quite necessary? Don't we all sometimes go to steep Corsica and ask for plains? And this, of course, means missing the tragic beauty of Corsican ravines.

The First Rapture.

Once we are more or less fitted to observe, having "cleared our minds of cant" as far as possible, it must be admitted that the greatest or the easiest pleasure of observation comes during the first moments of seeing a place. I state this with reservations, for we all know that there comes a long-lasting delight from steeping the mind in some well-known beauty. But that other, startled and fresh, is an extraordinary boon, seeming to come wholly from outside ourselves. You emerge from a tree-covered road and suddenly see a line of blue before you -- an arm of the sea, unguessed at -- it takes you by the throat with beauty. Or you reach a foreign port before dawn, hearing boatmen singing near the shore, and watch the new outlines dawn magically upon your sight. You feel that this is all given to you, outside your volition; you have not "used your imagination"; the work has been done for you. Yet even for this some preparation was needed, the preparation at least of eagerness and willingness to be moved by beauty. People can become blind to every kind of beauty for want of letting some strong hand "stab the spirit broad awake."

Some writers have the faculty of describing first rapture, faced with a new scene, above all others. Among these, first among them surely is D. H. Lawrence, whose impressionism is dazzling. Nothing in that way is beyond his powers. He can do an ice-cold landscape in the Tyrol or a glittering day along the South Coast of New South Wales, and, whether you know the scene or not, you feel that with him you are perceiving it for the first time. This is not the only nor the ultimate kind of observation, but while it lasts' it is miraculous.  Lawrence has done Mexico, Australia, Sardinia, England -- but there are many untasted astonishments for him still. So there are for all of us, unless we keep our minds over-furnished with factory-made impressions and opinions.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 22 September 1928

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

Reprint: Mabel Forrest: Our Romantic Poetess

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In the "Arabian Nights" we read of one Serendib, an Oriental merchant who went about the bazaars of Bagdad picking up all sorts of odds and ends, and making out of them, with deft artistry, things new and strange. Horace Walpole was a confessed disciple of Serendib, and decorated his bijou Gothic castle at Twickenham with lovely bits of statuary and cabinets crammed with coins and porcelain, and a hundred quaint ornaments in brass. Mrs. Mabel Forrest, our Queensland poetess, is another follower of Serendib, and from her magic pack of fancies she has for the last score of years or more been bringing forth, like a persuasive pedlar, a remarkable series of opalescent poems redolent of cedar and cinnamon, and reminiscent of the tinkle of temple bells. One wonders how she does it, as one wonders at a conjurer. Perhaps her fellow Australians have fallen into the placid mood of acceptance -- imagining that the things of beauty she has been producing with such fresh lustre and apparent ease are the things one expects as a matter of course from a conjurer. Long ago Kendall, thinking of Harpur, chided his countrymen on "the life austere that waits upon the man of letters here," and it would be a thousand pities if a similar indifference were to chill the heart of such a music-maker and dreamer of dreams as Mrs. Mabel Forrest has been.

   Upon an iron balcony above the city street,
   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.

The day will come when her magic book, like Prospero's, shall sink "deeper than did ever plummet sound," but, at least, let us reassure her that we love her sweet fantasies and re-echo in our hearts the clairvoyant sympathy which she has shown in many a poem for the weary and the heavy-laden. To do this is simple gratitude for the place she has taken since the death of Brunton Stephens as our representive Queensland poet, the one who has turned into shapes of beauty our common experiences of sunset and moonrise, of busy streets and shaded garden crofts, of child- hood's dreams and the wistful reveries of age.

Mrs. Mabel Forrest is a romantic lyricist. She is not a balladist like Banjo Paterson or Harry Lawson, for though she knows her Bush as intimately as any teller of its epical tales, her strength lies in the evocation of her thronging fancies, in the embroidery of them with the colours of masque or pageant, and in the lilting progress she gives to them the sound of shawms and cymbals. It is her most frequent method to take hold of some simple, common thing like a worn door-mat and turn it into a dream barge on which she visits the ports and happy havens of romance.

   Worn here and there by little feet,
      The mat upon the floor is string;
   And when you shake it, full of dust:
      By day an ordinary thing.
   But you should see it when at night
   The house is still and stars are bright.

The poem becomes an incantation, summoning up from the vasty deep "the cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself," as by the waving of a magic wand. Image swiftly follows image, aglow with colour and aromatic with incense, till the exquisite and passionate sensuousness of it all exercises on the mind of the listener an almost hypnotic charm, as if we were indeed looking from magic casements on the foam of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn. Mrs. Forrest's imagination is akin to that of Keats, who could not see a sparrow on the garden path without feeling that he was that very bird hopping about on the gravel. She visualises all objects within her ken, and her effects are so vivid that they do not need the underlining she sometimes gives to them. It is because of this art of make-believe that many of her poems fascinate the minds of imaginative children. She shares this knack with Robert Louis Stevenson, in his "Child's Garden of Verses." Here for example is one verse from "Goblin Time":

   In goblin time the iron tank --
   A harmless creature in its way --  
   Grows like some awful giant's head
   That crouched behind our house all day.
   The clothes-line hanging in the yard,
   With fluttering humble things upon,
   Has changed into a gallows tree,
   That holds a dangling skeleton.

Mrs. Forrest's imagination is populous with elfin folk. Another feature of her poetry is her riotous delight in decoration. She hangs festoons of flowers upon her rhymes, and threads them with necklaces of jewellery -- pearls, rubies, diamonds, turquoises, silver and gold. She clothes her figures with old time costumes or the silks of to-day. And as for colour, surely no poet has ever excelled her there. "Red Broom Handles " prompt her imagination to play with all shades of red from the caps of the pixies and ochre fishing-boats to the red of Revolution itself. The "Queen's Room" is a study in all sorts of yellows; and "Blue Tiles," seen in a shop window, call up to her fancy the Persian blue of Babylonian palaces. Indeed, she is apt to throw her palette into the picture-grey, moth-grey, stone-grey, snaky-grey; yellow, cowslip coloured, loquat yellow, grass yellow, saffron, golden amber, and "primrose honey," as well as reds and browns, blacks and whites. Out of such sensuously luxuriant material she can weave a story that is never dull, an exotic story of kings and queens, princesses and gypsy girls, and gentlemen with jewelled swords and sentimental hearts. Nor, is this all. She knows how to handle geographical decorations from the Orient. Of local colour no Australian poet has so great a command. Every bird and bush and flower is named and woven without forcing into her poetry. Her verse might have for its sign peacock with all its feathers up,under a rainbow. Her images have often the fanciful conceits of Donne.

   The mice of the Dark have nibbled the moon,
   Where it lay on the shelves of day.

As for metrical cleverness she has little to learn from Masefield's "Cargoes" when she writes of Sydney streets. To read a volume of Mrs. Forrest's poems is to feel yourself squatting in some Eastern palace on rugs of wondrous dye, with all the perfumery and cruelty of a Sultan's divan around you as you look from a lattice or a spicy garden of the Golden Horn. But if she surrounds herself with Oriental splendour, her ear is never dull to the still, sad music of humanity. How poignant her "Old Woman," in "Alpha   Centauri," and "Old Men," in the "Poems," are every reader knows.  And in the later poems (not yet   published in book-form) this diapason note sounds more frequently and more hauntingly, often in a single final line -- "I shall not need a lamp when I wander among the stars." Mrs. Forrest has been writing since the century began -- essays, poems, and four fine novels, and because she has written much under the spur of necessity, some critics have spoken of "her facile pen." "It costs not much to make a song," she says ironically.

   It needs no thews of mighty strength,
   No treasure fund of gold to sink
   Only a pen a dagger's length --
   With veil of heart's blood for the ink.

First published in The Courier-Mail, 30 September 1933

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

Mrs. Mabel Forrest, the Queensland poetess and authoress, whose works have had appreciative recognition in and beyond Australia, died early yesterday morning.

Mrs. Forrest had experienced indifferent health for several years, but continued her prolific literary output without impairment of her grace of style and vigour of thought. Paralysis of the right arm supervened on a fracture of the shoulder, caused by an accident about 12 months ago, but she bore her suffering with fortitude and cheerfulness.

Mrs. Forrest's early life in the country and experience on stations, amid bush-bordered lands or on the plains, was reflected in much of her work. She was the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Mills. Mr. Mills was well known on Darling Downs and South western grazing properties, including Marnhull and Callandoon. She was born near Yandilla, and she also lived in Goondiwindi and Dalby. Later she lived in Townsville and Charters Towers, amid the contrasting conditions of the North.

VERSE AND PROSE

Most of Mrs. Forrest's books bore alliterative titles. Her first novel to be published in London, in 1924, was "The Wild Moth," later screened as "The Moth of Moonbi." It ran into three editions in London. Other novels were "Gaming Gods," "Hibiscus Heart," "Reaping Roses," "The Bachelor's Wife" (published in 1912, and the prelude to success in prose), "Carlotta," "The Scythe of Fate," "Topaz Eyes." Among her verse was "Alpha Centauri" and "The Rose of Forgiveness" (1909), "Streets and Gardens"' and "The Green Harper." Some of her books first appeared as serials and these, as well as short stories and verse, were accepted by many Australian and English newspapers and magazines.

Several of her short stories were translated into Dutch and published in Holland. She won 14 prizes in literary competitions. Her writing began in her seventh year. In her country home she scribbled her thoughts on backs of envelopes and any piece of paper at hand. While other children yearned for toys she begged Santa Claus to bring a "big book, full of blank paper." She even wrote on a white-washed chimney with a piece of charcoal.

So much of Mrs. Forrest's work was redolent of the bush and the open spaces, of the tribulations and the triumphs of the men on the pastures and the farms, of the spirit of the country, and there was such understanding and sympathy in her description of scene and incident, that she was often thought to be a man. The Society of Authors, inviting her to membership, addressed her as "M. Forrest, Esq." She had been mistaken for a mine manager and a cattle and a sheep station owner. A Frenchman of letters, Henri Corbiere, appreciating her "The Heroes," written in war time, wrote to her longing to "shake mon ami by the hand."

Many notable English poets and authors wrote to her in tribute to her work. She was a member of the Society of Authors (London), the Fellowship of Australian Writers, the Lyceum Club (London), and a life member of the Queensland Press Institute.

The remains were cremated at the Brisbane Crematorium yesterday afternoon.

First published in The Courier-Mail, 19 March 1935

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

Reprint: English as She is Spoke by Randolph Bedford

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A correspondent writes that I should accept "the English language as spoken in the country of its origin," and asks if I want English as spoken on the Barcoo or in Surry Hills (Sydney).

The language of the Barcoo is direct English without affectation, though often illuminated; the English of Surry Hills used to be that of Cockaigne at the Antipodes, and is now rapidly becoming direct English, also without affectations.

English "as accepted in the land of its origin" covers a hundred dialects, and some of the worst affectations of the language. The dialects of Yorkshire, Lancashire, the Midlands, Devon, and Cornwall are not attackable. The patois of the Breton village and the provincialian of the Auvergnat are still French; Piedmont and Sicily speak Italian, though not the Italian of Tuscany; and similarly, though some Lancashire talk may be almost unintelligible to the stranger, it is still English of a sort. The Scotch speak in English with all the differences of men talking in an alien tongue; the wit and imagination of the Irish has made a richer English for Ireland. Whoever invented Welsh must have had as building material the ruins of many aboriginal dialects.

"Announcerese"

Where language or its idioms are natural, objections are almost pedantic, but the interests of beauty, as of truth, are served by objection to the dishonesty of affectation -- objection to the mental falsity and petty vanity that produce it. It was to that mental falsity and petty vanity that I alluded in objecting to the affectations of "Announcerese"-- such verbal horrors as "suparia" for "superior," "marely" for "merely," "par" for "power," "fah" for "fire," and a weather report as "clardy with shahs" for "cloudy with showers." My reference was to the "Announcerese" of the A.B.C., for the reception of B.B.C. radio is rarely good enough to make criticism sure; often mixed with static that disguises voices which clearer reception would enable me to identify as adenoidal.

But this week the B.B.C. reception was clear enough for me to hear the announcer -- a lady -- say that a talk on the Italian-Greecian situation was one jf the best "sairies of the Ar" -- meaning "series of the hour." It is a silly affectation even in London where the "silly ass" of Wodehouse language has replaced English in the West End, and for its copyists.

Compared with the Wodehouse dialect with its spurious cheerfulness and its humour manufactured with great difficulty, the language of the East End is honest and direct. English is not English where it has preferred sentences of "untin' and shootin' an' fishin', an' rippin'," and a direct people, as the Australians mostly are, must not permit themselves that affec- tation which is the lowest form of play acting.

Correct English

Of English speech as accepted in the land of its origin there are the examples of the clean unaffected diction of people in high places. Nothing more natural than the voice and diction of ex-King Edward VIII.; no more natural human speech was ever made than the present Duke of Windsor's declaration of abnegation and abdication. The King, though short of Edward's voice quality, speaks excellent direct unaffected English, and so does the Queen; Churchill's English is also forthright and correct -- marred a little, I think, by an occasional inflection, suggesting the slight unreality insep- arable from the histrionic sense.

But the insincerity of affected speech -- the encouragement to assuming a part -- to play acting in private or public life -- is its own condemnation. And seeing that radio enters the home and can scarcely be shut out of it, one must ask "is it likely that any child seeing the written word 'power,' and hearing it announced 'par' can get the best results from the day's educa tion discounted by the evening's entertainment?" It extends the number of mentally false people -- because there will also be imitators of affectations which are mainly the expressions of frustrated vanity, seeking a protective compensation; and of an impudent vanity that can say what it likes to the customers without fear of the customers talking back.

Met An Irishman

These affectations are also insults to men and women who know and love the language. In "Explorations in Civilisation," I laughed over an Irish man I met at Cogers Hall, off Fleet Street. Said he, "Y'have Tennyson -- the perfection of the sinses. Look at his nose. He cud shmell better than any other man. Says he:

   "Me very heart faints an' me whole soul greeves
   At the moist rich shmell of the rotting leaves
   An' the fading edges of box beneath
   An' the breath of the year's last rose!"

'"e cud shmell all that -- rotting leaf and fading s'rub an' dying rose. And or his ear-- man! for his ear."

   "Shwate is thy voice; but every sound is shwate
   Myriads of riv'lets hastening thro the lorruns;
   The moan of doves in immemorial allums;
   The murmurst of innumerable bees,
   Tennyson the perfection of sound."

An honest, sincere, and direct version. Now imagine Banquo's speech before Macbeth's castle, translated to "Announcerese"-- and note the destruction of beauty by the affectations of the cousin Slenders of the Radios.

   This guest of Summah
   The Temple haunting Martlet does approve
   By his loved Manshonray, that the heavens breath
   Smells wooingly ar; no jutty, frieze, buttress
   Nor coigne of varntage but this bird hath made.
   His pendant bed and procreant cradle
   Whar they most breed and haunt I have observed
   The ar is delicate.

All men who love English at its best -- the English of Shakespeare, Carlyle, and Tennyson -- must take the affectations that have always discounted its beauty, the affectations that have a larger spread because of their greater distribution by radio.

All language is the correct language; any idiom the correct idiom that has decency and directness; that does not stoop to play act -- a detestable quality always when off stage. More correct than the Wodehouse language and its sedulous apes in Australia are the pidgin of the Papuan, who is direct and tells his story in the fewest words possible, and with the highest literary quality, simplicity, and forthrightness. In the early days of Coolgardie I knew Chief Shaw, who was Mayor of Coolgardie and of Adelaide at the same time. He would be his Goldfields Worship this week and then by coach to railhead, train to Albany, and ship to Glenelg, he would become Mayor of Adelaide again.

In the days when he used to go to bed at least three times in a week, Chief Shaw gave a Mayoral ball at Adelaide Town Hall. At 5 a.m. the Town Hall ran dry; and the lads of the village adjourned with Shaw to the bar of the Old Napoleon.

"Ball go off all right, Mr. Shaw?" asked the barman.

"My oath it did. About half-past two this morning Lady ---" (wife of the then Governor) "came to me and smacked me on the back and she said 'So help me God, Jim! this is the best blanky hop I have seen in 20 blanky years." Of course, what the lady did say was, "It has been a charming dance, Mr Shaw."

Probably even the ribald version was better than the affected translation.

First published in The Courier-Mail, 16 November 1940

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

Reprint: Randolph Bedford. Miner-Writer-Politician

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To those who knew him well the late Randolph Bedford was a big-hearted, genial friend; to many others he was an enigma, and to many thousands he was a legend. That is precisely as he wished it to be.

Mr. Bedford became ill while visiting Sydney and returned to Brisbane last week to take a rest of several weeks in hospital ordered by his doctor.

A prolific writer in prose and verse probably the last literary contribution from his pen was a long, patriotic poem, "Voices of the Brave," which was published in "The Courier-Mail" on June 28.

It contained the following verse, which struck a note of sympathy and resolve in the heart of every loyal Australian:    

   Oh! My brothers! Labour soldiers in the mine, and forge, and mill,
   With yet another turning of the lathe and of the drill;
   Each precious minute salvaged from the avid sink of time  
   May save another soldier and avert another crime.        
   No faint heart can be here, if but we steel the soul and will;   
   No laggard here to help the foe of all the world to kill.

Mr. Bedford was a remarkable man, mentally and physically big, with a manner that presented him in a full, life-sized setting in most things that he said and did. He was essentially a fighter, with a blade forged and chilled in the battles of more than half a century, and he loved an adventure.

He was born in Sydney, but at 16 he was in the western districts, and at 17 he began to tread the Inky Way at Hay, in New South Wales. From there he went to Broken Hill, when it was mostly an ill-formed canvas town, to a position on the Broken Hill "Argus," which had just started publication. Broken Hill, only three years in development when he went there in 1888, was a rough place, and it was there he developed his love of mining fields and mining speculations.

At one time or another Mr. Bedford had been on every mining field in Australia and New Guinea.  

At 18 be had his first short-story published in the "Sydney Bulletin." That was enough; he decided that he would earn his living as a writer, and, with the exception of a brief period on the Melbourne "Age" as a reporter, he did so for many years. The mining fields gave him ample material, and he probably wrote more short stories than any writer in the Commonwealth, several plays (some of which were produced), a travel book, entitled "Explorations in Civilisation," and four novels, the two most popular being "True Eyes and the Whirlwind" and "Snare of Strength," both published in the nineties.

In October,1917, after spending three years in Italy and Mediterranean countries, he entered political life in Queensland as a member of the Legislative Council. He remained there until the council was abolished (one of his objectives in going there); and in 1923 he was returned as Labour member for Warrego, which constituency he represented until his death.

Mr. Bedford loved the storm, frequently raising one as he lashed his opponents with an eloquence and wit that was never excelled in the Parliament of his days. He gave no quarter and certainly looked for none. He was a big square block of a man, with a voice that detonated. He could talk in a whisper or raise his voice to a bellow, and he frequently silenced an inter- jector with a witticism that came like the flash of lightning.

In a tight corner he was Labour's most vigorous fighter, but never reached Cabinet rank, probably because his colleagues realised that in politics he was much happier in the hurly-burly of battle than in a friendly discussion.    

In 1937 he resigned his seat to contest the Maranoa Federal constituency against Mr. J. A. J. Hunter. He failed to dislodge the old Country Party representative, and returned to the State House as member for his old constituency of Warrego.

He was a man of undoubted ability, but he was too impulsive, for success in politics for he never learned to suffer fools gladly. He was impatient, and the secret of success in nolitics is to know how to wait in patience. That is a qualification that he boasted he did not possess.

With his death goes a good and vigorous Australian. 

First published in The Cairns Post, 15 July 1941

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

Reprint: Banjo Paterson Meets Kipling

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Mr. A. Paterson, the "Australian Kipling," has met the other Kipling. In the S. M. Herald he gives this account of it:--

While in town (Bloemfontein) inquiring into a certain matter I had the luck to meet Kipling. He has come up here on a hurried visit, and partly in search of health after his late severe illness. He is a little, squat-figured, sturdy man of about 40. His face is well enough known to everybody from his numerous portraits, but no portrait gives any hint of the quick nervous energy of the man.  His talk is a gabble, a chatter, a constant jumping from one point to another, and he seizes the chief idea in each subject unerringly. In manner he is more like a business man than a literary celebrity. There is nothing of the dreamer about him, and the   last thing one could believe was that the little square figured man with the thick black eye- brows and the round glasses was the creator of "Mowgli the Jungle Boy," of "The Drums of the Fore-and-aft," and of ''The Man Who Would be King," to say nothing of Otheris, Mulvaney, and Learoyd, and a host of others. He talked of little but the war and its results, present and prospective. His residence in America has Americanised his language, and he says "yep," instead of "yes." After talking some time about Australian books and Australian papers he launched out on what is evidently his ruling idea at present -- the future of South Africa. " I'm off back to London," he said, "booked to sail on the 11th. I'm not going to wait for the fighting here. I can trust the army to do all the fighting here. It's in London I'll have to do my fighting. I   want to fight the people who will say the Boers fought for freedom -- give them back their country!' I want to fight all that sort of nonsense. I know all about it. I knew this war was coming, and I came over here some time ago and went to Johannesburg and Pretoria, and I've got everything good and ready. There's going to be the greatest demand for skilled labor here the world has ever known. Railways, irrigation, mines, milk, all would have started years ago only for this Government."

I asked what sort of Government he proposed to put in place of the Boers.

"Military rule for three years, and by that time they will have enough population here to govern themselves. We want you Australians to stay over here and help fetch this place along."

I said that our men did not think the country worth fighting over, and that all we had seen would not pay to farm, unless one were sure of water.

"Water! You can get artesian water at 40ft any where! What more do they want!"      

I pointed out that there is a vast difference between artesian water which rises to the surface and well water which has to be lifted 40ft. When it comes to watering 100,000 sheep one finds the difference.

"OH, well," he said, "I don't know about that; but, anyhow, you haven't seen the best of the country. You've only seen 500 miles of Karoo desert yet. Wait till you get to the Transvaal!"  

"Will there be much more fighting, do you think?"

Well, there's sure to be some more, and the soldiers want to get their money back."

"How do you mean, get their money back?"  

"Get some revenge out of the Boers for the men we've lost -- get our money back. The Tommies don't count the lot captured with Cronje at all. They're all alive and our men are dead. We want to get some of our money back. You Australians have fought well," he went on; "very well. Real good men.  Now, we want you to stay here and help us along with this show. I can't understand there being so many radicals in Australia. What do they want? If they were to become independent, what do they expect to do?  Will they fork out the money for a fleet and a standing army? They'd be a dead gift to Germany if they didn't. What more do they want than what they've got?"  

I didn't feel equal to enlightening him on Australian politics, so I said, "What are you going to do with the Boers if you take their country?"  

"Let 'em stop on their farms."  

"Won't they vote against you as soon as you give them the votes back? Won't they revert to their old order of things?"  

"Not a bit. We'll have enough people to outvote 'em before we give 'em the votes. There'll be no Irish question here. Once they find they're under a Government that don't commandeer everything they've got, they'll settle down and work all right.  They're working away now to the north of us, entrenching away like beavers; we'll give them something better to do than digging trenches."

One could almost see the man's mind working while he talked, and yet all the time while he was talking with quick, nervous utterance of the great things to be done in those unsettled countries I seemed to see bebind him the heavy, impassive face of the man I saw in Kimberley -- Cecil Rhodes. Kipling is the man of thought and speech, Rhodes the man of action. Cecil Rhodes seems to own most things in these parts, and when our Australians reach the promised land of which Kipling speaks so enthusiastically they will be apt to find the best claims already staked out by Cecil Rhodes and his fellow-investors -- at least, that is my impression. There are no fortunes "going spare" in this part of the world; but, anyhow, this is not a political letter, and Kipling is big enough to draw his own rations, and if he chooses to temporarily lay aside the pen of the author for the carpet-bag of the politician, it is his own look-out. He expressed great interest in the Australian horses, and promised to come out to the camp and see them, and he gave us a graphic account of the way in which an Australian buckjumper had got rid of him in India. "I seemed to be sitting on great eternal chaos," he said, "and then the world slipped away from under me, and that's all I remember."

He looks pale and sallow after his illness, but seems a strong man, one that will live many years if his brain doesn't wear his body out.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 1900, and later extracted in The Barrier Miner, 17 May 1900.

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

Andrew Barton Paterson, poet, story-writer, and sportsman, is dead. "The Banjo" to Australians in general, and "Barty" to his personal friends, he was one of the "don't-care-a-hang" type. He was a good companion, a good colleague, a good friend, and a man who could adapt himself to any set of circumstances.

There is scarcely a corner of Australia in which the author of "The Man From Snowy River" was not known -- if not personally, at least by his verse -- and it mattered not whether he was among the sheep Outback, at the station homestead or in the shearing shed, or in the shearers' hut; at an up-country race or polo meeting; or on any field of sport; or fishing in his beloved Snowy River; or even on active service (he had three campaigns to his credit); "Barty" was always a fine fellow.

He loved Australia, and his verse, unlike that of many other Australian authors, was never morbid. He saw the best in his native country, and he had a keen sense of humour, which was equally apparent in his conversation and in his writings. Paterson will be numbered among the great Australians, and one test of his qualities was that one never heard him referred to as "Mr, Paterson." It was always "Banjo" or "Barty," which was as he liked it.

A son of the bush, which he loved. Paterson was bom at Narrambla, near Molong. After leaving the Sydney Grammar School he studied law, being subsequently admitted as a solicitor. For some years he practised his profession in Sydney, and was a member of the firm of Street and Paterson. He was not keen on the law, but he found time to combine with his legal work, as one writer has expressed it, "the writing of cheerful verse inspired by the life of the plains and hill stations." At every opportunity he got away to the bush.

Good-bye to Drudgery.

Eventually the pen triumphed over the law, and Paterson forsook what was to him the drudgery of the lawyer's office for Press work, which provided greater opportunities for a life in the open. As an editor, however, he was to a great extent out of his element, for, although newspaper work appealed to him, the administrative duties involved in these positions were not at all to his liking.

Paterson always had a warm spot in his heart for the horse. If Shakespeare had not put the words, "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" into Richard Ill's mouth, it is more than likely that Paterson would have uttered them. He dearly loved a horse -- a good horse -- and to have deprived him of his "horsey" talk would have deprived him of one of the pleasures of speech. Whether it was the most famous colt of the day; whether it was the slickest polo pony ever bred; or one of the wild horses of which he sings in his verse was all one to "The Banjo."

His thoughts were ever in the country. On one occasion he dryly remarked to the writer that he was going to spend a holiday with the sheep out west, and that about summed up Paterson's temperament. Sheep out west meant horses to muster them, and there "The Banjo" would be happy.

In those days Paterson's nerve and dash made him one of the best of amateur riders, and he was a frequent competitor at the meetings of the old Sydney Hunt Club. He was also a polo player of ability, and was keenly interested in the turf. Up to within a few weeks of his death he was a conspicuous figure on the principal racecourses of Sydney, with his outsize in field-glasses. At one time -- in the early years of the present century -- he essayed the ownership of racehorses, but did not meet with any great success. Paterson was a keen tennis and bowls player.

His verse will live long -- particularly in "the bush" -- for its cheerfulness and expressiveness, and for its description of the brighter side of Australian country life. 

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 February 1941

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

Reprint: Books and Bookmen: Dreams in Flower

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It is only when we get the verse of Louise Mack (it is not possible to be conventional and call her Mrs. Creed) collected under one cover that we realise what a loss to Australian letters was her departure for England. Not that she is now a great poetess -- it were too early to expect that -- but there is in all her work a hint of higher things to come, when she shall have shaken off the subjective method and explored the wider, freer realms of the objective. For her poetry, so far as this booklet is concerned, is almost purely personal, her own impressions scored in a minor key, with the dominant note always that of the aching pain of unfulfilled dreams and ideals. She is a worshipper of nature, and she fits the moods of the great earth-mother to her own thoughts -- and they are sad ones. Sometimes her own grief is emphasised so much that it jars on the sensuous enjoyment of her melodies; but more often she has caught the happy mean, and her stanzas breathe tones of sadness and regret that are common to all mankind. But she has an undoubted gift for assimilating the sombreness of our Australian landscapes, the gladness of our Australian skies, the gloom that hangs pall-like over our Southern scenes on occasions, and giving them forth again to her little world clothed in language tinged in the process of reconstruction into pen-pictures, with her own natural trend towards pathos, and with her own desire to turn the commonplace into the beautiful, or even the fantastic. And usually she tries, too, to bring human beings and human passions into closer touch with the natural, and in so doing she lifts them to loftier planes. There are few verses of hers that are perfectly free from the human element, but of the few here is an example from "Leaf Music":

      Listen! the winds are playing
         A fugue in the orchard trees;
      They creep through the boughs of apple,
         And linger among the leaves,
      And touch with a gentler straying,
         Leaves over soon decaying.

      . . . . . .     

      The winds come sighing, singing,
         Through leaves with a silken sheen
      This song is a silver treble,
         With an alto note washed in;

But she touches us more nearly with her tragedy, whether it be her own, or, as in "The Wharf," imaginative. She is so deeply in earnest, has so many aspirations that she has failed to attain, can reconcile so little her own life to that she would choose to live. There is in her work, from this aspect, a passionate sub-thrill of emotion, straining after the higher things of existence, or plunged in despair because they are beyond her reach. Hers is no ordinary chafing against the limitation of surroundings, no light protest against the confines of soul. Her one wish is expressed herein :

      To soar as a wild white bird,
         With a song, unbound and fetterless
      With a gush of song in the throat,
         Loosened and loud and letterless,
      And the wind its only accompaniment.

      . . . . . .

      Sudden and swift some day
         Meet Death, and have no fear of him;
      But close the eyes and have done.
      .... When a bird dies none hear of him.
         He has sung and ceased, and is happiest.

And because that is withheld from her, her verse takes on the bitterness in which she steeps her love poems, the poems in which passion is checked by the force of circumstance, where love suffers and is assuaged. This theme she has attempted many times, and mostly with success; but she is even better when she sums up the whole of life's griefs, and decides that they are after all naught when compared to the restfulness of the afterworld.  Perhaps her best work in the book is her long poem, "To Darkness," which is sonata-like in form. There is little that is more expressive and at the same time exemplifies her typical mood better than this verse, which concludes one of the "movements":

      Night, will you hear as I lie at your shadowy gate,
      And, silent, silent wait for your perfect breast?
      Night, will you know, though my Wandering Heart is late,
      It is yours at last, and is yours for ever?
      Little Dawn and the Middle Morn,
      And Moon and Sun, I have left them all,
      For the tireless peace of your passionless thrall.

Or in this from another poem:    

      Oh, the sweet of lying still!
      Of lying still and still, long year on year.
      Wild overhead lives throb and thrill,
      Waves beat the shore, and winds the hill,
      But only silence ever enters here.

There remains yet the best of her "human" poems, where she has set two hearts apart to watch their struggles towards reunion. There is something that touches one strangely in her verse of this description. It is not that the poems show any mark of genius. They are ofttimes only ordinary, but the pulse of feeling beats so strong, the chord of sadness rings so true, that one is constrained to remember and admire. And then there is her patriotism, her love for the city of her sojourn, the land of her birth. There are dainty little pictures in monochrome on every page, studies in gray that arrest the attention, and cry aloud for the quotation that space forbids. Louise Mack is a poet whose work must be read not once or twice, but many times, and every time her lines are scanned new beauties will spring into being. She has her faults, of course there are inaccuracies of rhyme and rhythm that are left unpolished, but there is the saving grace that her poetry is warmblooded, throbbing with elemental joys and sorrows. She has been original, keen in psychological analysis where that was necessary, and has broken loose from the fetters that usually bind the woman in poetry. Her booklet of verse is a thing that will be cherished by all Australian dilettante, because it is the only memento we have of one of our cleverest litterateurs, and in time, when its charm has sunk deeper, when the lines have been read until they are implanted in our memory, Louise Mack will be remembered as in her "Before Exile" she asks to be.

      This is my last good-bye,
         This side the sea;
      O, friends! O, enemies!
         Love me, Remember me.
      Farewell! and when you can,
         Love me, Remember me.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 22 June 1901

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

Reprint: Louise Mack: Authoress and Traveller by Ada A. Holman

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With the passing of Louise Mack there ends, it seems to me, a special page in Australia's literature. One of a clever family of writing sisters, Louise stands out by reason of her book of poems and the adorable "Teens." The poems were written in extreme youth, when she was a blue-eyed, golden-haired girl not yet involved in life's tragedies, but "broken-hearted" as we all are at that age. With what unction did the rest of us, equally broken-hearted, quote

Louise's lines:

      I am dead, dead tired of living,
         I am tired of everything.
      Tired of getting, tired of giving --
         Tired of winter, tired of spring.

The never-to-be-forgotten "Teens," the apotheosis of the Sydney High School girl, became the Bible of all the bright young things who did not then know they were "flappers." They worshipped their spokeswoman. A few years ago when I was on holiday with Louise in Queensland, important matrons were constantly introducing themselves as prototypes of her characters and demanding her autograph.

Early marriage did not interrupt Louise's literary career. Her ambition was unleashed, and London called. Without money and almost without introductions, she went and saw and conquered. Lord Northcliffe recognised her light touch in journalism as just what he wanted, and newspaper work might have claimed her altogether had not the romantic urge persisted. Book after book appeared -- innocuous novels they would be called to-day, but they had their faithful public, the young folk who like sentiment and romance and are not "hard-boiled." Once discussing her "Red Rose of Summer," Louise told me that life in London had often been far from a bed of roses for her. There were days when it seemed that she would have to own herself defeated and return to Australia.

I cannot help telling a story over which I have both laughed and cried. Going, practically penniless, after a vacancy on one of Lord Northcliffe's papers, she had to take a taxi because her shoes were so worn she could not walk in them. She got the job and haughtily told the commissionaire to pay the taxi and put it down to the boss. The man, probably dazzled by the blue eyes and baby face, meekly obeyed.

TYPICAL COURAGE.

That casting all on a die was typical. Courage was the keynote of her character, and "Darkest Before Dawn" peculiarly her motto. She had, her friends are glad to know, years of success and happiness in England, and again, in Italy -- the country of her Instinctive adoption; even if they are saddened by the knowledge that life was not as kind to her as it should have been in her later years.

Then came the war, and, for Louise, further opportunities. I never clearly gathered how she defied authority, which said no woman was to go to the front as correspondent, and just got there. Anyway, some of the finest accounts of events in Belgium appeared over her name. I have often said that she saw more with one eye closed than the average man a-stare. The information that she obtained at first-hand was afterwards enjoyed throughout the length and breadth of Australia in a series of brightly expounded war lectures -- vivid pictures of life as led by men and women in the stricken areas. She came equipped with films which, with the co-operation of the Minister for Education, she showed in most cities and towns of New South Wales.

Of her bright personality, her vitality, her gifts as a hostess, her perennial youth, her passionate love of literature and, above all, poetry -- how to speak? I can only ask in the words of Mary Gilmore:

      How shall I remember --
         With tears? With laughter?
      In all the years to come yet after
         Let me remember.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 November 1935
 
[Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Reprint: "The Little Missus" of the Never-Never

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In a book-lined room of a quiet Hawthorn (Melbourne) villa a tiny white-haired woman sits at her writing desk-- a woman who "never-never" forgets. She is Mrs. Aeneas Gunn, a 78-year-old author of the unforgettable Australian story, "We of the Never-Never" and the enchanting tale of Bet-Bet, "The Little Black Princess."  

It is more than 40 years since she wrote of the immortal band at Elspy cattle station, in the Northern Territory: 

"And all of us and many of this company shared each other's lives for one bright, sunny year, away Behind the Back of Beyond, in the Land of the Never-Never; in that land with an elusive name -- a land of dangers and hardships and privations, yet loved as few lands are loved -- a land that bewitches her people with strange spells and mysteries, until they call sweet bitter and bitter sweet."

This memorable crew, all but three have passed on -- The Maluka, The Sanguine Scot, The Head Stockman, The Dandy, The Fizzer, The Wag, Tam-o-Shanter and Cheon and many others.  

Only the Quiet Stockman, Mine Host and Jeannie Gunn, the "Little Missus" of her story remain.

But when one talks to her to-day of the characters of her books they are as fresh in her star-lit memory as if it were yesterday (writes Neil Newnham in the Melbourne "Herald"').

WHEN THE FIZZER FIZZED

Remember the Fizzer? Mrs. Gunn wrote of this hard, sinewy, dauntless mailman who travelled on his "Pat Malone": "and yet at Powell's Creek no one has yet discovered whether the Fizzer comes at sundown, or the sun goes down when the Fizzer comes." (Fizzing was his term for driving mails through waterless tracts.)

Last word Mrs. Gunn had of him came only, a few years ago, although he died in April, 1911.

Says Mrs. Gunn: "The Fizzer was Henry Ventlia Peckham, of Adelaide. After losing the Katherine-to-Anthony's run when the Government accepted a lower tender than his, he was granted the Katherine-Victoria River run, and by just that we lost our Fizzer.

"For on his first return trip he reached the ford built up over Campbell's Creek to find it in flood. Sending back to the station homestead, he inquired if there were any special urgency in the small amount of mail he had. He was told that the manager's wife, farther in, was ill and that medical advice was being sought in that mail; so he drove his pack team into the ford with his black boy leading.  

"The Fizzer and bis horse were swept off the ford into the raging turmoil below. To the black boy, Raven, he shouted, 'Save the mails,' and was gone. Next day his body was found, and he was buried on the high banks above the ford -- and the Government had saved its few pounds."

"The tragedy of it all was that the manager's wife had died before ever The Fizzer braved the flood," recalls Mrs. Gunn.  

GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD

Mrs. Gunn describes the decision of A.I.F. men in the Nor thern Territory, 30 years later, to move the graves of The Fizzer and others of her bushmen to the Elsey graveyard as "a beautiful, ambition." The Fizzer was the first to be brought in.

An obelisk has also been built by tribesmen of the Territory to the memory of her characters.

Mrs. Gunn can go on "Old Elsey yarning" about the others. The Sanguine Scot (John MacLennan) remained here and there about the Territory and eventually settled peanut growing at Katherine. He died in 1932 after a distressing illness.  

Dan, the head stockman (David Suttie, of Victoria), went to the Ord River station as a teamster. He died suddenly of heart failure on the road between Wyndham and Ord River, and is buried beside the road, where there was "still enough bush to bury a man in."

The Dandy (H. H. Bryant) died at Angaston, South Australia, in 1938. The Wag (Constable Kingston) left the police force to take over storekeeping, and died at Katherine in 1908.  

Tam-o'-Shanter (Jock McPhee) was always curiously pleased with "Our Book", and   corresponded by telegram. He perished terribly of thirst on the Willeroo - Katherine road in October, 1910.  

Even the fox terrier, Robinson of the Elsey, is recalled to memory. He died after a surfeit of roast bush turkey, says Mrs. Gunn.  

THE SURVIVORS  

In April this year Mrs. Gunn was visited by The Quiet Stockman (Jack McLeod, 78) and Mrs. McLeod. "He named his first child Jeannie Gunn McLeod, and his two sons bear the name of Gunn.  

"I think that tells of his loyal, true heart more than anything I can say," said Mrs. Gunn.  

The other survivor -- Mine Host (Thomas Peace) -- is 89.    

MRS. GUNN'S OWN STORY

And now, the "little missus."

Her husband, The Maluka, accustomed to rugged bushmen, described her accurately as a "little 'un". But through the 40 years since he died she has retained that vitality which makes size insignificant.

One can imagine even to-day why the woman-less community of Elsey cattle station in the Northern Territory was baulked in its attempts to stave off the Maluka's missus. Her approach to the social problems of two wars and their aftermaths is direct, sympathetic and courageous and holds the qualities which earned her the bushmen's praise-- "she's a goer, a regular goer."

SUCCESSFUL BOOKS

Why, after the success of her first two books ("We of the Never-Never" has gone to more than 300,000 copies) did Mrs. Gunn never write another? Her answer, "I have been too busy," may seem incredible to the many who do not know of her unostentatious social work -- especially for the soldiers and soldiers' sons of Monbulk in two wars.

[But Mrs. Gunn has two manuscripts in hand -- a history of Monbulk and some stories of the Victorian blacks.]

EARLY LIFE    

Jeannie Taylor was born in Carlton, opposite St. Jude's Church, on June 6, 1870. What has made her the envy of her wide circle of very young friends is her confession, "I never went to school."

But her mother was a wonderful reader and teacher. She combined visits to the art gallery, where historical scenes were observed, with visits to the library, where the corresponding historical account could be read.

There were always regular "school hours", however. Mrs. Gunn remembers the great W. G. Grace, "when I was a very small person." She is an admirer of Don Bradman. "There is no greatness without simplicity," she says in a tribute to Don.

FIRST MEETING    

She is contemptuous of the romantic, but erroneous, accounts of her meetings with Aeneas Gunn.

The true story:

With a Mrs. Kerr, an Irishwoman, she drove in a trap into Narre Warren for a concert. Outside the hall the horses would not stand, and young Jeannie offered to leap off over the wheel and hold them.

She stepped on the wheel, but the horses backed and spun her into the air.

As she fell a "long-legged Scotchman" detached himself from a group of people and caught her. So Jeannie met Aeneas Gunn, son of the first Gaelic preacher in Victoria, the Rev. Peter Gunn. They were married on New Year's Eve, 1901.

"Always throwing yourself at the men," chided Mrs. Kerr.

FIRST PUBLICATION

Since "We of the Never Never" captured its public, interest in the book, its characters and its authoress has never dimmed. 

Before it was published in England on Christmas Eve, 1908, "We of the Never-Never" was rejected by five publishing houses. Result of the first edition -- a debit of £11.    

Plates for the book were commandeered for ammunition metal in the First World War.

Mrs. Gunn has had many film offers for her story, including one of partnership in the filming company and another of £100 for film rights!  

The story of harum-scarum Bet-Bet (The Little Black Princess) was written on the recommendation of a Quaker, who insisted that Mrs. Gunn tell his grandchildren fairy-tales "as long as they were true ones."

From time to time aged lubras are hailed by Territory visitors when they cunningly claim, "Me Mrs. Gunn's Bet-Bet."

Typically. Mrs. Gunn regarded her O.B.E. award in 1939 as an honour to Australian literature.

First published in The Worker, 15 November 1948

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

Reprint: Mrs Aeneas Gunn: "We of the Never-Never"

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In the year 1908 there was published in Australia a book which was destined to achieve an immediate and wide popularity, and which many competent critics -- and those not Australian alone -- belleve to be one of the few "classics" that Australian literature has yet produced. This was "We Of The Never Never," a book which not to have read is to have missed one of the good things of life. It is a tale of experiences on a station in the Northern Territory, and the reason why every incident rings true and every charactor is clothed with flesh and blood is -- apart from that natural aptitude for the pen which is the great gift of the author, and which in her amounts to genius -- simply because those incidents and characters are not only based on actual happenings and actual people, but are very often complete reproductions of them. "We of the Never-Never" abounds in humour; but as with so much true humour, the tears are never far behind. Sentiment which never degenerates into sentimentallty; vivid description of scenes and people; and above all a natural and unaffected style, inform every page of this great story. For it is a "great" story, and the man or woman who can read it without yielding to its cheery laughter or its simple pathos is not to be envied.

The authoress of "We Of the Never-Never," Mrs. Aeneas Gunn, is now resident in Victoria, and the story is really of her own life at Elsey Station in the "Territory." Married on January 31, 1901, Mrs. Gunn set out for her new home three days later. She arrived at Elsey in February; and from that time onwards until her final departure from the Territory, the events of the daily round were chronicled by her assiduous pen. Transmuted by the fire of her genius into the gold of literature, they stand to-day, and will stand long, as a sympathetic, true, and striking picture of North Australian life.

Quite recently the Melbourne "Argus" conducted a plebiscite upon the question of the relative merits of Australian novelists. The result placed Mrs. Gunn third upon the roll of honour, the only two to gain precedence over her being Marcus Clarke and "Rolf Boldrewood." It was a verdict that speaks well for the taste and judgment of those who participated in it; but, nevertheless, there are many who believe that "We of the Never-Never" is a finer and a better book, both as a novel and as literature, than elther Clarke's grim story of "the system," or "Robbery Under Arms."

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 September 1927

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

Reprint: Essex Evans - Poet and Patriot by Firmin M'Kinnon

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Though Australia has produced no great poet, no lyric singer like Shelley or Swinburne, no poet philosopher such as Browning, and no sweet singer of simple lays who could rise to such stupendous heights as Wordsworth did in the 'Prelude" and other poems, yet, in comparison with its population, Australia has produced more poets than any nation in history. Of the 3000 books and booklets of poems that have been published within the last 50 years -- most of them within the last 25 years -- there may be only a few of outstanding merit. But that few will live because their authors have been the interpreters of the soul of virile young nationhood. Of such is George Essex Evans, who was born in London on June 18, 1863 -- 63 years ago yesterday.

Essex Evans was not a great poet. He was not one of Australia's best. He had not the lyrical sweetness of a Kendall; the flashing humour and passionate intensity of a Brunton Stephens, the fierce democratic picturesqueness of a Lawson or a Bernard O'Dowd. But he was a patriot in the fullest sense of the word, and it might be said of him as he himself said of Brunton Stephens:---

   "The gentle heart that hated wrong,
      The courage that all ills withstood,
   The seeing eye, the mighty song,
      That stirred us into nationhood."

George Essex Evans combined the best that is English and Welsh. His father, John Evans, a barrister and a politician, was also a poet, and his mother, one of the Bowens of Llwyngwair in Wales, was a highly cultured lady, a classical scholar, and a linguist. He was brought up in a home and atmosphere of culture, but unfortunately be was handicapped by deafness, a handicap that was almost a barrier in those days to success as a student. Essex Evans was but a child when his father died; and at 18 years of age, in company with a brother, Mr. J. B. O. Evans, and other members of the family, he came to Queensland. He and his brother engaged in farming operations at Allora, aud it was while he was there that he commenced to contribute verse to the "Queenslander." At that time one of the greatest influences in Australia in the development of Australian literature. Every keen newspaper man is always watching for any new literary comet that might float into his ken, and Reginald Spencer Browne, now Major-General Browne, was probably the first man to detect the merit of Evans's poetry and to give him encouragement. They became fast friends, a friendship that was intensified by the fact that both were athletic, both were lovers of good literature, and both were endowed with a sense of bantering humour. Like other poets in this sunny clime, Evans wrote because his very heart leaped into verse. At the same time it would be difficult to over-estimate Browne's influence on his young friend, on influence that lasted throughout the poet's life, because he encouraged him to write poetry when Evans would probably have preferred to talk of his prowess on the fields of sport or of his latest reading. Thus, from "Christophus" of the "Queenslander" he jumped into fame in 1891 -- 10 years after his arrival in Queensland -- with his first volume of poems, "The Repentance of Magdalene Despar and Other Verses," a little volume that revealed much imaginative and romantic poetic diction. Six years later he published his second volume, "Loraine and other Verses," and in 1906, three years before his death, his greatest book, "Secret Key and Other Verses," was issued, and indicated that if Evans had lived he might easily have attained a very high niche in the pantheon of Empire poetry.

POET AND PATRIOT.

Evans, like many other Australian poets, had to make money from his poetry. Unlike Gray, he could not afford to alter and to polish for eight years. From time to time one hears of people who "dash off" something in an evening. But no writer ever "dashed off" any poem of first rate rank, or anything else of high quality, for that matter. Shelley and Keats, Gray and Tennyson, all weighed and measured and altered and realtered; and even Macaulay scored and underscored his writings till it was difficult to read the final drafts. But most of our Australian poets have had to write "white-hot" for the morning newspaper. Thus, for instance, Evans wrote his well-known poem, "The Lion's Whelps," in the office of the old "Darling Downs Gazette" one night in December, 1899. The cabled story was coming through, telling how Methuen had failed at Magersfontein, and how the Black Watch and the Gordons had been slaughtered. Every one was despondent, for it had been a month of reverses. Next morning the paper contained the cable, but with it were the inspiring verses, commencing:  

   "There is scarlet on his forehead,
   There are scars across his face,"

and going on to tell how the lion's whelps were gathering, and answering the call,

   "From sunlit Sydney Harbour,
      And, ten thousand miles away,
   From the far Canadian forests to the
      Sounds of Milford Bay." 

One does not expect great poetry in such circumstances. But it served its purpose, that of cheering the despondent hearts of a nation.

One school of critics claim that patriotic poetry can never be real poetry. But such critics conveniently forget all about Shakespeare and Milton, Wordsworth and Tennyson, Kipling and Newbolt, and a hundred more. It is perfectly true that the only kind of patriotism that great poetry can care much about is a patriotism in the truest sense of the word, as distinguished from the narrow political sense. The statesmen die and are forgotten, but the poet never dies; and there is no measuring the degree in which poets like Brunton Stephens and Essex Evans have helped to mould the true patriotism of the Commonwealth, the really big Australianism that thinks in terms of a nation and of an Empire.

First published in The Queenslander, 3 July 1926

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

Reprint: "The Garden of Queensland"

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To-day will see the publication of the most ambitious piece (technically speaking) of book-printing which has occurred in any Queensland town, excepting, of course, Brisbane, up to the present time. It is seldom that a book like "The Garden of Queensland," representing as it does merely an account of the Darling Downs, is excellent from every point of view. Usually the letterpress is sacrificed to the illustrations or the illustrations to the letterpress. In this instance neither alternative has occurred. The name of the compiler, Mr. George Essex Evans, is more than sufficient guarantee that, in point of literary merit, the book is all that can be desired. The author has thrown his whole heart and soul into the work of gathering and editing the different facts, and the result is a perfect mine of information ready to the hand of any who care to delve in it. The historical part of the book is particularly good, and shows a complete grasp of that particular branch of the subject. Mr. Evans begins with an introductory chapter dealing with the discovery by Allan Cunningham of the vast extent of open downs to the north of New England, christened by him the Darling Downs, in honour of the then Governor of New South Wales. Then follows an "early sketch," devoted to a discussion as to the climate, natural features, and the quality of the soil, and giving in addition a short record of the pioneers who first opened up the country after Allan Cunningham had proclaimed its virtues. The rest of the work is given up to a description of the principal towns and settlements, stations, and selections which are now scattered over the Downs in all directions. In this portion of his work also, Mr. Evans is intensely interesting. No matter what may be the calling or inclination of the reader, he will find in the pages of the book something that will be of great service or at least attractiveness. Mr. Evans has not been content with the dry-as-dust facts That statisticians usually affect, but has chosen rather to place his data in a setting of prose which is both pleasant to read and to remember. Not only is Mr. Evans's work on the highest plane, but the more mechanical part, performed by Messrs. J. H. Robertson and Co., of Toowoomba, is likewise much to be commended. The general typography, the illustrations (from excellent photographs by James Bain), and the display generally combine in the production of a book that is completely satisfactory.

First
published in The Brisbane Courier, 12 August 1899

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

Reprint: Adam Lindsay Gordon

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Time, which tries most things, is the one sure test of a poet's popularity, and there are indications that the poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon have satisfactorily responded to the test (says a writer in the "Australasian"). When that personal and friendly intimacy which so often mistakes zeal for genius has passed away, when only a few of those who knew Gordon in the days when he wrote and rode remain upon the scene, there is opportunity to view his work in a better perspective. It is pleasant, therefore, for those who hold Gordon's memory in fond regard to find the annual pilgrimage to his grave in Brighton Cemetery exciting wider interest as the years pass on. It is significant as an earnest proof of the admiration which Australians have for his poetry. And the fact that another generation of poets has since arisen has in no way disturbed the high estimate of his work or the sympathetic interest ever associated with his name. But when we come to consider Gordon's place in Australian literature, his influence upon Australian people, it is not as the "Laureate of the Centaurs" that he most impresses us.

Apart from considered criticism, there is always the unconscious test which in relation to the singer we employ with neither will nor intention. Poetry, if it is to satisfy the popular mind, must have music in it as well as thought and fancy. The things that in moments of abstraction go singing through one's head to a music of their own are often Gordon's. Under that test he is still the most widely read, the most popular of all Australian poets. In such a test it is seldom the hoof-beats of the galloping rhymes that come to us unbidden, almost unconsidered. Rather an echo of steel, with the glamour of cavalier days, when knighthood was in flower; from the half-legendary sources where Tennyson drew his inspiration for the Idylls of the King, or, as in Podas Okus, from the romance of the classics. The horse lover in all moods, he would have gloried more in the war horse than in the steeplechaser; had he lived and written to-day, he would have found an epic in deeds of the Anzacs. If there was one thing more than all else that would have appealed to Gordon, it would have been to adventure with Chauvel's horsemen over the plains of Palestine on that long war trail where so many conquerors have ridden, where Crusader and Saracen clashed, and holy writ and history meet. He is the singer of the sword, born out of his generation, some centuries too late for the picturesque times of the Cavaliers, too early by just a lifetime for the war of all time. It is ever his sword songs that go ringing through our minds; examples might be taken from many poems, beginning with the Rhyme of Joyous Guarde, the betrayal of Arthur, the remorse of Launcelot.

   Then a steel-shod rush and a steel-clad ring,
   And a crash of the spear staves splintering,
      And the billowy battle blended.
   Riot of chargers, revel of blows,
   And fierce flush'd faces of fighting foes,
   From croup to bridle that reeled and rose
      In a sparkle of swordplay splendid.
  

Such are the "ringing major notes" which caught Kendall's ear -- a far finer estimate of the real Gordon than Marcus Clarke's mental summary, "love of horsemanship and a head full of Browning and Shelley." The influence of Shelley and of Swinburne upon the form of his verse is at times obvious enough, but the spirit of it was born long before their day and generation, springing from heredity, rather than iron acquirement. Even in galloping rhymes and racing tips the glory of the soldier still shines through:--

   Did they quail, those steeds of the squadron's light?
      Did they flinch from the battle's roar,
   When they burst on the guns of the Muscovite
      By the echoing Black Sea shore?
   On! on to the cannon's mouth they stride,
      With never a swerve nor a shy,
   On! the minutes of yonder maddening ride
      Long years of pleasure outvie.

Through the "Romance of Britomarte," the "Roll of the Kettledrum," and many a fragment of "Ashtaroth" the same note rings. Will Ogilvie, writing first of "Fair Girls and Grey Horses" in Australia, found back home his deeper life-spring note in the " Border Ballads," and with Gordon the process was reversed. He was the singing cavalier long before he rode steeplechases and wrote galloping rhymes. With him shrine and sword are notably close together. Though a man rode and lived recklessly, who was in some sense fatalist as well as pessimist, a strong religious note permeates much of his verse -- a religion less familiar and assured than that of his Roundheads, but obviously sincere. From one who ended the weary debate with a rifle bullet one hardly expects maxims, yet there are some sound and sure enough to be a rule of life such as only a very numan philosopher could have written:--

   Question not, but live and labour
      Till yon goal be won,
   Helping every feeble neighbour,
      Seeking help from none.
   Life is mostly froth and bubble,
      Two things stand like stone --
   Kindness in another's trouble,
      Courage in your own.

Though Gordon may not have lived up to his own maxim, it was still his con- sidered creed and his poetry. Had destiny been kinder, he would have been a soldier following in the footsteps of his father, and, since sing he must, would have sung arms and the man with a fine swing of old-fashioned chivalry.

Even in the best of his bush notes there is ever the touch of old association:--

   Hark, the bells on distant cattle
      Waft across the range,
   Through the golden-tufted wattle,
      Music low and strange;
   Like the marriage peal of fairies,
      Comes the tinkling sound,
   Or like chimes of sweet St. Mary's
      On far English ground.

It is not for any special or consistent note in Gordon's poetry that people are making pilgrimage to his grave, but because so many find something which they may admire. He has interpreted, idealised the bush note which they know by contact and experience, while keeping them in touch with the glamour of that distant past which is their racial inheritance, which has inspired so much of their romance, their poetry, and their history.

First published in The Queenslander, 6 December 1919

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: The Grave of the Poet Gordon

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   Let me slumber in the hollow where the wattle blossoms wave,
      With never stone or rail to fence my bed;
   Should the sturdy station children pluck the wild flowers o'er my grave,
      I may chance to hear them romping oberhead.   
                                -- "Sick Stockrider," A. L. G.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir-- Having read in a Melbourne paper that the grave of 'our own poet' was sadly neglected, I took the opportunity during a recent visit to Victoria to satisfy myself as to the truth of the statement. As Gordon has many ardent admirers in this city I thought perhaps they might be interested by a description of the place where lies all that remains of Adam Lindsay Gordon, and for that purpose avail myself of your valuable columns.

It was a cold though bright Sunday afternoon when I wended my way to the Brighton Cemetery, where the poet sleeps. The burying-ground is large and undulating, enclosed by a plain post-and-rail fence, and is divided into sections for the various religious denominations. On a gentle slope in the portion set apart for the adherents of the Church of England I found the object of my quest. The monument erected to his memory is in the form of a tall column of fluted unpolished granite, roughly broken off at the top and encircled by a wreath of flowers carved in marble, emblematic, it seemed to me, of the life cut off all too soon, but still crowned by the wreath of poetic fame. The base of the column is faced square, with marble tablets, the inscriptions on the various sides of which read thus-

   Erected in Memory of the Poet Gordon,
      Died 24th June, 1870, aged 37 years.
         Seaspray and Smoke Drift.
               Ashtaroth.
      Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes.

A few plants are growing round the grave, which seemed to have been recently tended, and one little ivy plant clings lovingly to the discoloured stone. The unfenced grave is sentinelled by wattle and gum trees, and it seems almost as if the wishes of the poet, as expressed in the lines at the head of this epistle, had been carried out to the letter. It pleased me to think so, at any rate. There, with the breezes sighing through the boughs, bending with the surging of the not too distant sea, whose roar he loved, for a lullaby, Gordon sleeps calm and undis- turbed, waiting, only waiting, for the time when

   The world as a withered leaf shall be,
   And the sky as a shrivelled scroll shall flee,
   And the dead shall be summoned from land and sea
   At the blast of his bright archangel.

   Then, ah, then, perchance--
         The night rack lifting
         Shall discover the shores unknown.

As I bade farewell to the tomb a cold fog rolling up from the sea shrouded the place in gloom, somewhat according with my feelings at the time.

I am, Sir, &c, ALFRED J. ROBERTS.

First published in The South Australian Register, 4 July 1887

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

Reprint: Furnley Maurice: An Interview with a Poet by "Polygon"

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Two men wrapped to one skin sat on the other side of a table in the hotel lounge and talked about poetry. The skin and the dominant personality were those of Mr. Frank Wilmot, manager of the Melbourne University Press. The second personality was Furnley Maurice, who stands to the first rank of Australian poets.

Mr. Wilmot reached Perth last Mon-day on a short holiday visit and left again by boat on Thursday. An interview was sought with him on Australian poets and poetry during his brief visit.

I had known the voice and had tried to know something of the mind of Furnley Maurice for several years, but I knew practically nothing of Mr. Wilmot except that he had been engaged in the book trade for most of his life in Melbourne and that some 30 years ago, rather shyly it would seem, he gave the name of Furnley Maurice to that part of himself that wrote poetry. The link between Mr. Wilmot and the poet has not been a secret for many years, but it is still the name of Furnley Maurice that appears on the title page and the initials F.M. that sign the preface.

Mr. Wilmot, the book trade man, is an agreeable chap to meet. He does not look any more like a poet than Browning, Wordsworth, John Donne or William Shakespeare did in their time. He is a man of about fifty, with nothing strikingly unusual about his appearance. There are some lines of humour on his face, and a quick interest, but with hints of an almost quizzical observation on the ways of the world rather than of fervent enthusiasms. He might be called typically Australian in general appearance and he is typically Australian, too, to his apparent dislike of any thing resembling a literary pose. Momentarily, one guessed, he felt it was a bit funny to sit, down to the lounge of a hotel to the middle of the day and start talking about poetry to a man you had never seen before. His order to the steward was 'proletarian beer.'

Then he talked, and gradually a third person appeared -- or the other two withdrew. This may sound silly to the author himself and his intimates, but my impression is that, to start with, 30 years ago, there were the somewhat romantic Furnley Maurice wanting to write poetry, and the somewhat hesitating, logical and also keenly sensitive Frank Wilmot who was rubbing very closely against the external world. They were put into separate compartments. But to the course of 30 years they worked on each other to make the complete and mature man that is the writer of today. This was the third person who now emerged slowly and did most of the talking, once the way was found to be clear. Now and again the original Mr. Wilmot would pop in a little nervously with some humorous remark; and once or twice, faintly, could be heard the voice of the youthful and romantic Furnley Maurice.

"Literature Must be National."

After preliminaries we got down to the needs of Australian literature. "The first need," he said, "is a clearer and a stronger Australian nationality-- an insight into what Australia is. In spite of what these professors say, I firmly believe that any literature must be national."

He quoted as an outstanding example the Irish national movement to literature, which, he said, succeeded to producing the greatest English-writing poet of modern times and one of the most interesting dramatists-- Yeats and Singe. "Although their ideas were what professors would regard as local, even subsurban, they have produced really great writers. That seems to be the same with the Russians.

'There is an idea I have expressed again and again and nobody seems to have taken any notice of it," he continued with enthusiastic warmth. . . ."

("Most people spend their lives to trying to get one idea understood and they are damn lucky if they do," put in Mr. Wilmot with a nervous chuckle lest his other half should be thought a crank.)

"My idea," continued the poet, "is that all literatures are national and must be national in their origin, but they may become international later and by accident. Every literature belongs first of all to its own time; it may come later and by accident to belong to all time."

Illustrating his point he mentioned Walton's "The Compleat Angler," written for its own period and its proper occasion and later hailed as a classic. Shakespeare, too, wrote not for posterity or the world but for and of his own day.

Writing to a "Recipe."

The second need of Australian literature, he went on, was a genuine critical method. Following up that quite uncontroversial point we talked for a while about "the enormous amount of sheer imitation" to Australian literature and of "a chap he knew" who purposely set out to write according to "the recipe" which other popular novelists had found successful.

"What would you make the young writer do? Read less and live more?" "I would not seek to restrict their reading to any way but when they write I insist that they have to write from their own observation," he answered. "Life is different. It is different in each of the Australian capitals . . . (Here Mr. Wilmot, the business man, interjected with some thing pleasantly diplomatic about how nice Perth seemed) ... It is different to every age. It is different to every coun- try. You have to see it."

Following up his theme he placed Henry Lawson and Tom Collins to a high place as builders of Australian literature, because of their direct observation of life. Vance Palmer and Katherine Susannah Pritchard were quoted as examples of conscientious writers of today.

Eventually the poet was asked to talk about his own work. "Well, first there was 'Unconditioned Songs' " he said, "that is first, except for another little book that is only a bit of a curio now. 'Unconditioned Songs' was written without any attempt to polish the work off. It was a try-out to see if there was anything to the ideas just as they stood."

"Then Came the War."

"Then came the war." He grinned slowly. The next thing rose out of what you might call an anti-war attitude. That was 'Eyes of Vigilance.'''

In a casual way, smiling and occasionally chuckling over the recollection he told of the circumstances of the publishing of what has been described as one of the most notable Australian literary works the Great War produced -- a volume containing that sequence of verses called: 'To God: From the Warring Nations," which, if only they knew them or could hear them read would be greeted with endorsing cheers by the hosts of youth today.

It was otherwise when they appeared. "It was rather funny," said the writer. 'The publisher showed it to two people. One was Chris Brennan (the late Professor C. J. Brennan) and the other was Walter Murdoch. It was very interesting to read their opinions. I have the two letters still and I always keep them to gether. Professor Murdoch readily accepted it as a genuine expression of a certain feeling. He was very friendly. But the other man was terrifically hostile. There were four pages -- he wrote a beautiful, neat hand with close lines-- four pages of beautifully-written savagery, attacking it from the point of view of poetry and technique and what not, but all the time trying to justify the militaristic attitude against the pacifist one"' The poet laughed. "Mind you," he added more seriously, "Brennan was quite earnest to his dislike of it."

He suddenly laughed again, quite happily and without bitterness, at another recollection. "Professor Archie Strong, of Adelaide, described it as the 'pathetic out-pourings of a professional pacifist' or something like that," he said and recounted how Professor Sinclaire (at one time lecturer to English to the University of Western Australia) took up the coun- ter-attack to characteristic fashion.

And these 'pathetic outpourings' contained the sonnet beginning "The sparrow has gone home into the tree"; and such a couplet as:

   "How can we hate for ever, having proved
    All men are bright and brave and some where loved?"

Asked about the state of mind to which he wrote it, the poet said: "I thought it was only common sense. I remember when I was writing that, my only feeling was that it was taking a fair while to write, although it was written very hurriedly, and that after all it might not be much use because everyone else would be thinking the same things before it came out I thought that they would have had enough of this brutality and would be eager for a return to humanity."

The Poet and Social Wrongs.

After further conversation about the war volume we switched on to the question of how far literature should concern itself with public affairs. (Unfortunately that meant that we did not proceed to discuss his best volume, "The Gully.")

"What attention should the poet give to social problems?" he was asked. "Any reader could gather that there are some things to this world that make you yourself very indignant."

The poet chuckled again. "Have you noticed that?" For a moment there was a chance that we might have heard more about it from the Furnley Maurice side of him, but Mr. Wilmot decided that the discussion should be kept on a literary level.

We began by making the distinction between literature and propaganda. "I hardly think that propaganda as such is likely to inspire any great literature," he said. "It is the ideas behind writing that are of importance." Although we had made no direct reference to it up to that point, we both apparently had to mind his latest book, "Melbourne Odes." The poet started to discuss some of its themes, and particularly that biting third ode, "Upon a row of old boots and shoes to a pawnbroker's window"-- a composition filled with the cry of human distress and the mingled pity, anger, and bitterness of a man who finds it unbearably wrong that such things should be, an ode that echoes the cry that was to the war poems.

'"Old Boots' is not propaganda," the   poet said. "It is stating some sort of a case. It depends on some sort of observation."

"I have always been interested to the backwashes of life," he added later. He recounted a scene he saw going home from work one night down a lane. "I had just turned down a lane after having a drink at a pub," the story commenced. Then he saw a crowd of hungry men scrambling and wrestling around a tray of scraps that had been put outside the back door of an eating house. It was hunger. "It sets you thinking, and it does not matter a damn what your politics may be," he said; and his manner showed that it is pity, not theory, that is behind whatever he may say about social wrong.

''A record made of observations is to the realms of literature," he insisted; "and, to any case, I think a writer is quite justified in sacrificing his aesthetic sensibility if it is necessary to do so with the object of expressing some idea and correcting what he considers to be some great wrong."

After a diversion to Shelley, Zola, and Tolstoy, tested as propagandists, we came back to the "Melbourne Odes."

"The function of a poet is to create a state of mind that makes the acceptance of ideas possible," he said. "Lead your country into a deeper sense of the importance of life. The poet also helps to reveal the life that people are living to themselves. People are patient and complaisant, and it takes imaginative penetration to get the real meaning of a lot of things that people have been considering to be common-place."

Time called the limit to our talk. I may have come away a little uncertain whether I had talked with the author of "The Gully" or of such lines from "Plunder" as --

   From the drowned gardens where slow water-gales
   Wash unknown jungles and world weary hulls.

But there was a very definite knowledge of having come into a vital contact with the writer of "Melbourne Odes"-- a romantic who faces reality, an idealist who looks around him.

First published in The West Australian, 15 February 1936

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

Reprint: Wilmot, the Poet: Contributed to National Tradition

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Frank Wilmot, writing under the pen-name of "Furnley Maurice," was a social poet, who made a distinctive and original contribution to national tradition, being a keen critic, as well as a poet.

This was stated at the University College last night by Mr. T. Inglis Moore, when he delivered the second of his lectures in the series, "Two Social Poets."  

On his death in 1942, Frank Wilmot was manager of the Melbourne University Press, and spent his life in that city, writing, selling and publishing books. He was a prolific poet,     publishing 13 volumes, which covered pure lyrics, reflective odes, descriptive verse, satire, and even a book of children's verses.

Mr. Inglis Moore said that his most mature and valuable poetry was in his ''Melbourne Odes," published in 1934, one of which won the Dyer Centenary Prize during Melbourne's Centenary celebrations. Here he set out to give "Imaginative significance to everyday objects" in a modern, unpoetical language. Thus, he is important as a poetic revolutionary in Australia in his use of modern idioms to describe modern life.

Other poems in the Melbourne series included one on the agricultural show at Flemington and "The Victoria Markets, Recollected in Tranquility." From "Ode to a Grey-Haired Old Lady Knitting at an Orchestral Concert, Price Two and One, Plus Tax," his imagination created a fine poem, just as his sardonic humour found expression in the satires called "Odes for a Curse-Speaking Choir."

In conclusion, Mr. Moore pointed out that Wilmot was placed in the first six of Australian poets. His special value will probably be as a romantic realist, who presented Melbourne life around him in a highly individual amalgam of brute fact, satiric humour and penetrating imagination.

First published in The Canberra Times, 27 September 1945

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

Reprint: On Climbing Trees: Satire by C. J. Dennis

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"The Glugs of Gosh." By C. J. Dennis, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, Ltd. 

What is a Glug? Mr. Dennis supplies a definition in his new book. A Glug is a familiar creature -- so familiar that any town might well be called Gosh. Few can escape the impeachment of Mr. Dennis. His book is like a mirror, and he who looks into it will see his reflection, perhaps more or less distorted to his mind, but nevertheless a reflection of some sort. At least he will admit the sincerity with which his neighbor is pictured, even though he denies his own gluggishness. In "The Glugs of Gosh" Mr. Dennis has broken away from the style of "The Sentimental Bloke'' and "Ginger Mick." The idiom he uses is more fanciful than colloquial, although the popularity of the writer will doubtless ensure the wide adoption of some of the terms he happily invents. Mr. Dennis has been wise in discarding his earlier style. It has served its purpose, and it is fittingly preserved in the two works mentioned and in "Doreen." The new book, is delightful in every way. It may not pain so much public favor as its predecessors, but it stands as the best that has yet come from the pen of its author. In satire "The Glugs of Gosh" is rich. Mr. Dennis shoots his pointed shafts with unerring aim. His sentences do not spare the glugs, or the swanks, but they are dressed up so whimsically and fall into such a merry rhythm that they carry something of a cure with them. And the cure is the best of cures, for it makes all, with a vestige of humor, laugh at themselves. They are fortunate glugs who can laugh at themselves, even if they must continue to "climb the trees when the weather is wet to see how high they can really get."'

The philosophy of Mr. Dennis is reminiscent of some of that lighter reasoning which colored certain stanzas of the old Tentmaker of Naishapur. It is the philosophy which points to the joy of the world around us. The writer pulls us down from the trees we are climbing and urges us to look around. There are the fields, the blue skies and golden sunshine, and the little blue wren. And still to climb trees when the weather is wet is a human practice. The lesson of "The Glugs of Gosh" is a good one, and couched in agreeable poetry -- poetry which is strikingly fine in places. But the main charm of the book is its quaint and fanciful humor. Mr. Dennis carries the reader along at a gallop -- a rare exhilarating gallop. The bells of his rhyme tinkle musically and sweet, and in Gilbertian rhythm he sings his song.  

For one in search of a Glug Mr. Dennis has many directions. His whims have full play, and his poesy is dominant:-

   On a white, still night, where the dead tree-bends
      Over the track like a waiting ghost,
   Travel the winding raid that wends 
      Down to the shore on an eastern coast.
   Follow it down where the wake of the moon
      Kisses the ripples of silver sand;  
   Follow it on where the night seas croon   
     A traveller's tale to the listening land.
  

Then it is necessary to wait until the wash of the thirteenth wave "tumbles a jellyfish out at your feet." But if the fish proves disappointing and ''sneers in your face like a fish possessed," there are other ways. You can "wait till the clock in the tower booms three,'' and then proceed until you halt

   By the carrier's horse with the long sad face
      And the wisdom of years in his mournful eye;
   Bow to him thrice with a courtier's grace,
      Proffer your query, and pause for reply.

If the melancholy equine should be as reticent as the jellyfish, there are still other ways. You may wait till "the blood of a slain day reddens the west,"

      Choose you a night when the intímate stars
   Carelessly prattle of cosmic affairs.

The author warns you that "Who finds not, 'tis he shall be found;" and then passes to his tale of Gosh:-  

   The Glugs abide in a far, far land ,
   That is partly pebbles and stones and sand,
   But mainly earth, of a chocolate hue,
   When it isn't purple or slightly blue.
   And the Glugs live there with aunts and wives,
   In draught-proof tenements all their lives.

And, in addition to their exercises under uncongenial conditions, they

      . . Climb the trees when the weather is hot,
   For a bird's-eye view of the garden plot.  
      Of course, it's rot, 
   But they love that view of the garden plot. 

The Glugs press a peculiar trade in stones with the Ogs from the land of Podge. But, meanwhile, there is born to an unGluggish Glug named Joi a son, who is christened Sym. And Joi gives his son good advice. 

   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."

So while the Glugs listen to the "song of the Guffer Bird, or chase the Feasible Dog, as so many are wont to do, Sym grows up in wisdom, and becomes a tinker who delights to sit with his back to a tree and sing his own rhymes. When Joi develops revolutionary tendencies, and suggests the assassination of King Splosh, they hang him on a Snufflebust Palm. The Swanks then flourish, and swathe themselves in red tape, and the Lord Swank swaddles "his portly shape like a large, insane cocoon." These "minute-writing, nation-blighting" Swanks are plentiful in Gosh.

   They lurk in every Gov'ment lair,
      'Mid docket dull and dusty file,
   Solemnly squat in an easy chair,  
   Penning a minute of rare hot air
      In departmental style.
   In every office, on every floor,
   Are Swanks, and Swanks, distracting Swanks,
         And acting Swanks a score,
   And coldly distant, sub-assistant,
         Under Swanks galore.
  

In Gosh there is an old volume rare that nobody asks for, heeds, or reads, which fact "makes it a classic, famed through the land." In this book there is a prophecy that when Gosh is in danger a rhyming tinker may be its saviour. Gosh is in danger, and the Mayor of Quog discovers Sym, and drags him into public life. Sym creates a sensation with rhymes, but the cunning Sir Stodge overthrows him in debate. So Sym goes off with his little red dog, content to be free of the Glugs again. There dawns a day when Gosh is literally "stony broke," and then the scheme of the Ogs is revealed. They attack Gosh with the stones which they have gained in trade.

   And the first of the stones, hit poor Mr. Ghones,
      The captain of industry.

Protests are uttered against this un- gluggish behaviour--

   But the warlike Ogs, they hurled great rocks,
   Thro' the works of the wonderful eight day clocks
      They had sold to the Glugs but a month before,
      Which was very absurd; but, of course, 'twas war.

When the Ogs retire, declaring their victory, King Splosh sends for Sym. But the rhymester will have no more of politics. He is happy with his Emily Ann, and content to leave Splosh to his own troubles. The tale of Gosh ends with Sym's song:

   Kettles and pans! Ho, kettles and pans!
   The stars are the gods, but the earth, it is man's!
      Yet down in the shadow dull mortals there are
      Who climb in the tree-tops to snatch at a star:
   Seeking content and a surcease of care,
   Finding but emptiness everywhere.
   Then make for the mountain, importunate man!
   With a kettle to mend . . and your Emily Ann." 

There is one more couplet:  

   As he cocked a sad eye o'er a sheltering log,
   "Oh, a Glog is a Glug!" sighed the little red dog.

Whether the reader looks for lesson or laughter, "The Glugs of Gosh" is well worth while. There are some capital illustrations with brush and pen by Mr. Hal Gye. Mr. Gye has happily caught and expressed the whimsical spirit of the verse-maker.

First published in The Advertiser, 27 October 1917

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

Reprint: Vale "Den" by R. R. Perry

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   Livin' and lovin'; learning to fergive
   The deeds and words of some un'appy bloke
   Who's missed the bus -- so 'ave I come to live
   And take the 'ole mad world as 'arf a joke.


That was the philosophy of life of C. J .Dennis, poet, journalist, amateur carpenter, and deep student of human nature, who died in Melbourne on Wednesday, June 22, aged 62. Dennis -- or "Den" as he was affectionately known to thousands -- was born in Auburn, South Australia, in 1876. He was the son of a retired master mariner, and early in his boyhood showed an aptitude for writing verse. He joined the staff of the Critic in Adelaide in 1897, became its editor in 1904, and later founded the Gadfly. In between this newspaper work he wrote and published many volumes of verses, covering a wide field. The first of these was "Backblock Ballads" (1913). "The Sentimental Bloke" followed in 1913. It was when he wrote of "The Bloke" or Ginger Mick that his appeal was widest, for in these he put into words the thoughts that many an uneducated man might feel but could never hope to express.  He was a lover of mankind, and his deep belief in the inherent goodness of men and women found expression in most of his verses. In the "Glugs of Gosh" he had a sly dig, which went over the heads of many. I mention the work merely by way of indicating his versatility, which, indeed, needs no emphasis for those countless readers of his daily verses written at short notice on every conceivable subject. He was to the average Australian what O. O. Mclntyre was to the average American reader, except that Dennis, wrote in verse and O.O. (who also died recently) in prose gossip. Both had been through lean times; both wrote their way into the hearts of the people because of their wide sympathies, their ability to see into the hearts of men and women.

First published in The Queenslander, 29 June 1938

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

Reprint: Lawson's Latest

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"Stokin' and Other Verses," by Will Lawson, is characterised by vigour and lucidity. It is a relief to get hold of something robust without being exaggerated, and clear without being unpoetical. The union is not a common one. Poetry too frequently has an air of aloofness. One is often at a loss to know what is troubling the writer and what is wrong with the world at large. Also it seems that there is no great concern in life but "passion." Will Lawson has the commonsense to see the proportions of the things of the world as they are; he has seen them with clear eyes and writes of what he understands. The poetic gift cannot be put to any higher use and produce more readable and arresting matter than, for instance, in "Stokin'" and "Trimmin' Coal."

   "For the stoker gets the down-draught,
      And the greasers have the fan,
         But the bunkers
         (Steamer's bunkers)
      Ain't no place to put a man.
   There's the darkness that you see there,
      And the darkness that you feel,
   And the everlastin' grindin'
      Of the coal beneath your heel.
   Up on deck the men and women
      Laugh to feel her easy roll--
   They don't know the way we're trimmin'
      At the cruel slidin' coal."

The contrasted lines that are jumbled together on a steamer are again powerfully suggested in

  "You praise your gallant skipper and skilful engineers;
   The A.B. is a hero who squints one eye and steers;
   The ladies like the moonlight and officers to chaff;
   They haven't any tickets on us, the stoke-hole staff,
   Who keep the boilers hummin' and funnel-flues a-roar,
   With blisterin' steel above us and on a blisterin' floor.  
   They're laughin' on the main deck, but I would like to know
   If they are ever thinkin' of the men who toil below."

The writer keeps his feet on the solid earth all through the book. He has the eye to see, the heart to understand and the graphic pen to describe. Even most people, who say they cannot read poetry would be able to spend an hour or two in Lawson's company with real pleasure and, who knows, some profit-if that is not an objection. The terseness, strength, and condensed descriptiveness of the phrasing is a most prominent feature.    

With the exception of one or two pieces, which are not to be taken seriously, one never, or hardly ever, strikes a weak line. It is not exaggeration to say they quiver with life. Sometimes, too, there are lines like "And her eyes were a song unsung," which is as beautiful as it is suggestive. Lawson has no attention to spare for intangible things. He deals with the things that one feels and sees. Kipling has not a more pictorial quality in his work. There is, by the way, a slight inclination to bring in technical terms in places, which is a good thing to avoid as far as possible. Australian poets have been much enjoined to employ local colours, and the result has been rather too much and too wearisome, an insistence on the eucalyptus flavour. Lawson has avoided this and yet kept his work true to the character south of the line.

"Ladies in the Engine Boom" is just exactly what many and many a dispirited and wondering engine-room man must have thought. The poem carries conviction with it, and is just as good vernacular poetry as it is genuine human nature. There are examples of literary men who have used their gift of insight for nothing more than exhibition purposes -- who in fact seem rather to regard the lives of other people as only given to the possessors for the sake of furnishing authors with copy. But "Ladies in the Engine Room" has that peculiar inward note of identification with the subject of the verses which cannot be assumed. It is nature and art in unusual combination. It is a slight thing, perhaps, but it is perfect of its kind. The whole book has a brisk and gripping quality (Wellington, N.Z., Gordon and Gotch.)

First published in the Western Mail, 20 March 1909

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: River Voyaging by Will Lawson

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Sir,-The recent successful republication of "The Sentimental Bloke" suggests that there are other Australian books which would be welcomed -- books out of print for long years.

In connection with the Sturt celebrations, such books as E. J. Brady's "River Rovers," a story of a voyage by boat, and C. E. W. Bean's "Dreadnought of the Darling" would be welcomed.

It seems to me that the arrangements for re-enacting this long boat voyage by Sturt should be handled by older men. The young men of to-day know nothing of these great rivers, yet there are still rivermen in old ports along the Murray whose knowledge and experience would make the boat trip something more than just a rowing effort.

There are many wrong ideas held about the river. For example, it was announced last week that a man would voyage in a canoe down the Tumut River into the Murrumbidgee and that this would be the first time such a thing had been done.

In 1936, when I made a round voyage in a river steamer, the Wanare, gathering material for my book, "Old Man Murray," we met off Rufous Reach a lad in a canoe who had come from Tumut. He was about 16 years old and had little food with him, yet insisted that he must finish his journey unaided.

On our return voyage from Mildura we overtook him in rainy weather. Again he was invited on board, but insisted he must complete his voyage from Tumut to Adelaide in his canoe.

"But the river don't go near Adelaide," the skipper said. "Come on, get aboard and nobody will know."

He came on board, very tired, had a meal, and slept well on bags laid against the boiler, where his clothes soon dried. Next day he went on his way and reached Goolwa safely. His was a marvellous voyage.

Referring again to river books, the first Australian writer to write of the Murray was Price Warung, years ago, in a series of short stories.

WILL LAWSON. Northbridge.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 December 1950

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

Reprint: Dorothea Mackellar

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Amongst the many classical definitions of poetry it is not always possible to find one that just exactly describes a particular poet. For, after all, the definitions are by their nature general, while they also express more of the author's reaction to poetry than what the poets themselves are seeking to express. But, for the work of Dorothea Mackellar, Edgar Allan Poe surely found the perfectly fitting phrase when he described poetry as "the rhythmic creation of beauty."

From the first poem, which, when it appeared in the London "Spectator" about 20 years ago, attracted attention to her work, up to the latest work that she has done, Dorothea Mackellar has been creating sheer rhythmic beauty. Often quoted aa one of the most sincere and genuine expressions of an Australian's feeling for his country, this poem sings in simple lines of the elementary appeal of Australia:

   "I love a sunburnt country,
      A land of sweeping plains,
   Of ragged mountain ranges,
      Of droughts and flooding rains.
   I love her far horizons,
      I love her jewel-sea,
   Her beauty and her terror --
      The wide brown land for me!

   The stark white ring-barked forests,
      All tragic to the moon,
   The sapphire-misted mountains,
      The hot gold hush of noon.
   Green tangle of the brushes,  
      Where lithe lianas roll,
   And orchids deck the tree-tops
      And ferns the warm dark soil.

   Core of my heart, my country!
      Her pitiless blue sky,
   When sick at heart, around us,
      We see the cattle die --
   But then the grey clouds gather,
      And we can bless again
   The drumming of an army,
      The steady, soaking rain."

This poem is typical, with its simplicity and the vividness of its imagery, of the work of this poet, which as Miss Nettie Palmer remarks, "has been chiefly vivid and enthusiastic landscape painting." It is typical also in its expression of the limitation of the emotions of the poet. Enthusiastic as she is in her descriptions and in everything she writes, she seems never to have plumbed the depths of any great emotion.

The daughter of Sir Charles Mackellar, well-known as physician and legislator, Dorothea Mackellar has never known the struggle which has tried and tested many another poet. She was born in Sydney, educated privately and travelled extensively in Europe and America, Morocco and Egypt, China and Japan. Thus she is by no means parochial in her admiration for Australia. Nor is she limited in the sweep of her artistic vision. She is one of those who found a place in the group which the Vision Press sought to stimulate a few years ago. Several examples of her recent work are included in the Vision Press "Poetry in Australia in 1923." But although her verse is essentially personal in the universal sense, which makes the lyric, it lacks the strength of expression which comes from the experience of deep emotion.

Fanciful, charming, colourful, and vivid are adjectives which describe her most striking qualities. She has the simple and vivid imagination of a child, as when she sings, in "Magic"--

   "Crawling up the hillside,
      Swinging round the bay,
   With a ceaseless humming
      Ply the trams all day.

   When it's dark I linger
      Just to see the sight;
   All those jewelled beetles
      Flashing through the night!"

Dorothea Mackellar is always keenly conscious of the romance of common things. In "The Open Sea" she paints a vivid word-picture --

   "From my window I can see,
      Where the sandhills dip,
   One far glimpse of open sea.
      Just a slender slip
   Curving like a crescent moon --
      Yet a greater prize
   Than the harbour garden-fair
      Spread beneath my eyes."

Her later verse, even when it is concerned with the expression of thought as well as description, reveals the same childlike inconsequentiality. In "Waste" she tells of Swaying Moonflower, the potter's daughter, who rejected all the magnificent gifts brought by all the Sultans and Rajahs --

   "Her mind being set on Celestial things."

The point of the poem lies in the philosophical conclusion drawn at the waste involved in the rejection of these gifts, and is expressed in this way --

   "All the Rajahs and Sultans went
   Home with their disillusionment;
   All the presents she scorned were hurled
   (Tigers included) about the world;
   They mostly dropped them into the sea --
   But not even a turquoise was offered to me!
   I wish it had been -- I hate all waste,
   And nourish an earthly contemptible taste
   For peacock-shimmers and vanities
   But Swaying Moonflower was doubtless wise."

Dorothea Mackellar'a first book of poems, "The Closed Door and Other Verses," was published in Melbourne in 1911. It rapidly ran into four or five editions. Since then she has published another volume, "The Witch Maid and Other Verses" and much scattered verse. She has found a place in the Oxford "Book of Australian Verse" and in the "Children's Treasury of Australian Verse." Some of her best songs challenge comparison with some of the oldest and best as when in "Summer is Icumen In" she sings of--

   "The beautiful old simple songs
      That make us laugh and cry,
   That sing of dying loveliness,
      In words that cannot die:"

with its conclusion--

   "And Alisoun is dead long syne
      With him that called her fair,
   But love is just as sweet and fresh
      When spring is in the air;

   And though I must perforce be dumb
      Who have no skill to sing,
   I am as deep in love, in love,
      As is the year in spring!"

This is poetry, whch, without qualification, places Dorothea Mackellar high in the ranks of the poets of the world.

First published in The Morning Bulletin, 7 March 1931

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

Reprint: An Australian's Novel

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After collaborating with Miss Ruth Bedford in "The Little Blue Devil," Miss Dorothea Mackellar makes a successful debut as a novelist on her own account in "Outlaw's Luck." Here again Miss Mackellar shows ber penchant for out-of-the-way corners of the earth and deeds of derring-do, where dash and courage are conspicuous by their presence, and respect for the law, as often as not, conspicuous by its absence. The scene opens in the Argentine of a few years back, when each man was more or less a law unto himself. Here "Kid" Prevost, horse thief and gambler, whose guileless appearance conveys to the world quite an erroneous idea of his character, passes himself off as a "tenderfoot" at an English estancia, and carries away its horses. He also carries away Katherine, the sister of the owner, in order to conceal his tracks. After various vicissitudes, in which the "Kid" impresses his charm alike upon the reader and upon Katherine, the latter passes out of his lite, though not before her influence with that of his brother turns him towards the paths of virtue. He goes to Texas, where he becomes a blameless ranch owner, but the past still pursues him, and an unfortunate incident, in which a bowie knife plays a lethal part, makes him fly the country. In the end he suddenly falls in love, and marries a New York society girl, but even here happiness is denied him, for a postscript tells us how wife and child died, and "left 'Kid' quite grown up at last and broken." We feel that sad as such an ending is, it is the inevitable solution, for with all his good qualities it is impossible to imagine "Kid" a staid father of a family. The book is well written, although the denouement is rather hurried and abrupt. The ne'er-do-well, capable of better things and essentially fine in grain, has been drawn before by many; but Miss Mackellar has contrived to make the insouciant "Kid" quite a convincing and original figure. There is besides a feeling for the open spaces of the earth and a great appreciation of courage and endurance even when directed towards lawless ends, that lift this novel well out of the ordinary rut. (Mills and Boon; G. Robertson.)

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 May 1913

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

Reprint: Too Many Books! by Nettie Palmer

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Some one wrote to me lately asking my opinion about the censorship of books, and gradually I found that the writer favoured censorship in the hope of making books fewer. The more books were condemned, for one reason or another, the fewer there would be to cumber the world! It seemed to me a suggestion worthy of Herod, sheer infanticide. My correspondent was fixed, though, in a belief that books were to-day increasing in numbers beyond all bearing, and that if writers would not cease writing, or publishers cease publishing, mounds of books would have to be condemned and suppressed on some pretext, so as to clear a space for those that remained.

But what does any one mean by too many books? There are more books produced than any one can read, of course, even if we never returned to reprints of old work as we do. We never pretend to read everything that appears. Our minds are affected, more or less, by the books other people are reading. Thoughts jostle in the air, but thought is never over-crowded nor too plentiful. The question then is not whether there are too many books for any one of us to read -- for of course there are; but whether there are too many books for all of us to read. Are we choked and overfed, with books wherever we turn? Are more books published now than fifty years ago, in proportion to the number of readers? I was strongly of opinion that books had not increased, and while I was wondering where I could get my statistics for the matter I found myself supplied with them -- not Australian statistics, indeed, but English.

More Readers -- Fewer Books.

Sir Ernest Benn, who knows as much as any one in England about the publication and marketing of books, wrote some months ago:  

"We are producing in this country to-day, roughly twice as many books as were published in 1880. I doubt whether there is any commodity and I am thinking of books as commercial commodities -- which could show so little advance in the vital fifty years since that date. And yet there is much more reason for an increase in the market of books than for an increase in the market of clothes. In 1880 we had a population which was almost illiterate, the Education Acts were quite new ... so that the book market of 1880 was limited to that small section of the population which had the advantage of a proper education."

This is written of England, but is equally true of Australia. How many elegant, standardised homes have failed to include even one bookshelf in their standards! This might not be seriously wrong, if the people in those homes were never restless, never mentally starved, never discontented with the few and ill-chosen books that some one has brought home from the library! But these homes are rarely the abode of self-complete sages or of Mr. Dooleys. Mr. Dooley did not feel the need of reading; he made thoughts himself. When he said that the Bible and Shakespeare came before all other books with him, and that he hadn't yet read them either, you felt he was, nevertheless, a full man. But most of us have appetite for books, whether we quite know it or not: and hunger makes restlessness. The most tranquil homes I know are indeed those in in which there is always a book -- not often a new book -- within reach.

Where Books are Scarce.

Books are a curious invention -- a bundle of papers indifferently connected and covered, exuding now a stimulant, now a soporific. While reading a book we are isolated, cut off from those about us. At the same time we are sharing in a form of delight common to an enormous number of our kind. We are joining the mental life of humanity. It is probably still true, even in 1929, that more people have read a book, of some kind, than have driven a motor car. People enjoy books, without doubt (I am not speak- ing here about the qualities and varieties of books.) What is done in ordinary life, to satisfy this appetite for books? Books merely double their output in fifty years, while hats and cotton increase a hundredfold.

Take a small, typical country township, and its book-supply. It must be mentioned that the township has a butcher, a baker, two general stores, and two bowsers. The books? In each of the two stores there is a shelf? A shelf, did I say? No, for that suggests length, a dimension. This "shelf" is a more pigeon-hole, capable of holding two piles of paper-covered books, perhaps fifteen in each pile. The books are the kind that once were issued at sixpence, but since the war have been a shilling. They look like rather compact magazines. Thirty "books" in stock. Well, if they are sold out fairly often, it might mean that the township, visitors included, consumed five hundred in a year. But no; wait a minute; these books are not sold, except by accident. They are a circulating library, the only one in the place, and there are no new books anywhere for sale. These paper-backs circulate till they drop. You pay a shilling for one; then you bring it back and when you borrow its successor you only pay threepence. If you forget to bring your book back, or leave the township with it in your luggage, the storekeeper has your shilling and your threepences and all the other books.

Can you imagine any other commodity being dispensed in such a manner so niggardly and slovenly, and with such contempt! Bathing suits in the same shops cost a guinea or more, and are not hired out, though they are more toughly built than these books. The bathing suits are better chosen, too, but that goes without saying, for the books are not chosen at all. "Too many books !" did some one say? In three years the majority of books in those two files show the same names, which I should rather not mention, just as I should rather not undertake to describe a bathing suit that was both shoddy and worn out.

At this point, some one raises a mild hand and says: "But what about the books in the School of Arts ?" Well, there is no School of Arts in this township yet, and I admit that when it does come it will have a library, supported by a Government grant. There will then be a certain number of books, bound with some firmness, and they will mostly come in quite new. They will not add to the number of books to be seen on the home shelves, nor will they take the place of a book department in the stores, but they will go far to satisfy, from week to week, the appetite for reading. After twenty years, though, which is not a long period in the life of a good library, what is the condition of most School of Arts libraries? So far as I know   them, they are filled with a mass of old novels, dusty and out-of-date, almost never read now, with the addition of a shelf of "the latest," while they remain new. That is, books are ordered for the School of Arts in this way: the bookseller is to send twenty pounds' worth of fiction, which, whatever other qualities it lacks, must be new. Nothing becomes old fashioned so quickly and hopelessly as a book, whose one quality was its newness; it "dated" from the first. I would suggest that some books are never old fashioned. "Don Quixote," Henry Lawson's stories, Lady Gregory's plays, Charlotte Bronte's novels, Lamb's essays, most of Shaw's plays. A public library that added a proportion of such books to its catalogue every year would have something to show, at the end of twenty years, that was not merely an accumulation of out-of-date rubbish, something that needed no apology.

But too many books! Most people are suffering from book malnutrition, for which the plain word is starvation.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 19 January 1929

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

Reprint: "Utopia is Here", says Nettie Palmer

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Nettie Palmer, the Australian authoress, has returned to Australia with "a sneaking feeling that when Sir Thomas More put Utopia in the South Seas he thought of us." This is her conclusion after having gone to look into the European question and having been in Spain when the revolution began.

Vance and Nettie Palmer's elder daughter, Aileen Yvonne, who is 21, was in Barcelona when the revolution broke out. Her parents, ten miles away, were unable to reach her for three days, when they secured a lift in an army lorry.

They found no frightened refugee, but a capable young woman intensely interested assisting athletes who had gone there for the Olympiad acting as interpreter, as she spoke English, French, Italian, and Spanish.

She is again in Spain interpreting.

Met the Famous

Vance Palmer called at Henry Handel Richardson's home, a quiet house called Green Ridges, in Sussex, where the authoress lives quietly with a secretary, working regularly, but deliberately, every day.

"She won't hurry to please publishers, and her work is lasting," Palmer commented. "She is a most intensely serious artist, direct and simple in manner, and obviously Australian.

"She has lived in England since seventeen, except for a return trip to Australia in 1912, to collect material for 'Richard Mahoney,' but she retains the Australian voice.

"I met Rebecca West, whom I know very well, but we don't agree on many matters; also Havelock Ellis, one of the two old angels which include Bernard Shaw.

"It is not generally known that he came to Australia when 17, graduated at the Sydney University, and taught in two little bush schools before returning to England."

Mrs. Palmer broadcasted at the B.B.C. on Australia and Spain, and has returned with much material. She intends to amplify and modernise her book on Australian literature.

First published in The Australian Women's Weekly, 17 October 1936

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

It is fortunate that in this centenary year, when our thoughts are ready to turn towards the past, a portrait of the chief creative interpreter of our past has been presented to the National Gallery. We are told simply that this portrait of Henry Handel Richardson, the novelist, is by Eaves, R.A. Nothing has been said as to the period of the portrait. Was it painted in youth or maturity? In neither case could it be without great interest, for if this writer had never written a line she would still have been a striking personality, a composer of distinction, and with features, in all the photographs that have been preserved, early or recent, reminiscent in general of the familiar portraits of Dante. Not for nothing was she given such a literary ancestry, with its character of indomitable will. Her greatest work, the trilogy called "The Fortunes of Richard Mahony," was the task of 15 obscure years, and it was only with the publication of the final volume, "Ultima Thule," in 1929, that its quality and importance became everywhere acknowledged. Everywhere is not too strong a word to use for the extent of its fame; the trilogy has had large English and American editions, has been published in several European languages, and in a world of mere seasonal novels has been recorded by important critics in the literary histories and encyclopaedias of Europe. A great character study, a great tragedy, a great pageant of colonial life, "The Fortunes of Richard Mahony" comes before us here and now in this last aspect chiefly.

The trilogy is concerned not with Australian life as we Australians know it, but with the colonial period. Richard Mahony, restless, restive in new, difficult conditions, was the colonist always, and unwilling to become anything else. It is through his eyes that we see the pageant of Australia Felix-in the 'fifties and 'sixties, mostly on Ballarat; in the 'seventies round "Marvellous Melbourne." Richard Mahony, the struggling storekeeper, then the rising doctor of Ballarat, R. Townshend-Mahony, the doctor, who, having made a fortune by some gold shares, had built himself an expensive home at Elsternwick, so far out of town that he named it "Ultima Thule" -- at no time did either Mahony surrender himself to the life growing round him so fast. He was still the unimpressed new arrival. From first to last of the trilogy he vibrates to the old saw: Coolum, non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt. True this was for him. He had no power to change his mind to suit the antipodean clime. To find representations of settlers who have not this rigid hostility, we go to others of our novelists. The quartermaster in "A House is Built" turned from fighting with weevils on the high seas to the providoring of the miners, and felt at home. There were at least certain branches of "The Montforts" to whom Australia meant their native air. Again, in Mr. Brian Panton's recent and considerable book, "Landtakers," the settler from Dorset makes gradual contact with this new world, though it takes him 20 years to become its willing prisoner; his mind became changed. Finally, in an Italian novel, set in the sugar country round Innisfail (Q.), a present-day character from Italy says simply, "coming into a new world a man must make himself it new mind"; and he has effected this partly by forgetting his doctorate of laws and becoming for the time a lorry-driver. Divers images of content, promptly or gradually gained; but Richard Mahony resembles none of them.

Through his restless eyes we see the difficulties, the contrasts, and changes of early Victorian days. The author never makes the mistake of forcing her character to toe the line with the history books. The Eureka Stockade had its historical importance; to Richard Mahony it was merely an irritating little disturbance that involved the prospects of a younger friend." Melbourne in the 'fifties was a lively enough spot, but not once does Richard Mahony remind himself that he is in "Melbourne of the 'Fifties." He goes through with it, but has not even a modicum of the "naive receptivity" possessed by the irresponsible Purdy, who for a time is the Sancho to his Quixote. They ride down from Ballarat together.

The brief twilight came and went, and it was already night when they urged their weary horses over the Moonee Ponds, a winding chain of brackish waterholes. The horses shambled along the broad, hilly tracks of North Melbourne; wearily picked their steps through the city itself. Finally, dismounting, they thrust their arms through their bridles and laboriously covered the last half-mile of the journey on foot. Having lodged the horses at a livery stable, they repaired to a hotel in Little Collins street. Here Purdy knew the proprietor, and they were fortunate enough to procure a small room for the use of themselves alone.

But next day in the bustle of the dusty city Richard is all preoccupation with the annoying law case that has brought him to town, all irritation with the disrespectful law clerks and underlings who speak of him as "just a stony-broke Paddylander." In spite of his marriage soon after to a young woman who, for her part, is sturdily content to be an Australian and share the ups and downs of the new place, Richard still has his eyes on the ends of the earth. Like the more hapless of the gold diggers, he had been, after all, a mere fortune hunter in coming to the new world. Their "loveless schemes of robbing and fleeing" were not more loveless than his own. In a different material, and not more calamitous.

For a Melbourne reader to-day it is hard to say which of the three volumes, with the sub-titles, "Australia Felix," "The Way Home," and "Ultima Thule," is the most interesting. The city lives again in embryo, or, rather, in babyhood, the Melbourne of 1854, in passages of the first volume:

Towards five o'clock he took his seat in an omnibus that plied between the city and the seaside suburb of St. Kilda, three miles off. A cool breeze went; the hoofs of the horses beat a rataplan on the hard surface; the great road, broad enough to make three of, was alive with smart gigs and trotters.

Well, to-day they have made three of it, and with trees and bitumen they have checked the dust which was its frightful- ness, whether the wind blew up or down it. Mahony's goal in St. Kilda was a low stone villa, surrounded by verandahs, in the midst of tasteful grounds; "the drive up to the door led through a shrubbery, artfully contrived of the native tea-tree." We have changed all that, it seems. St. Kilda's was, perhaps, the first bayside council to treat the tea-tree as a noxious weed and faithfully wipe it from the landscape.

In "The Way Home," we have a more settled Melbourne. Settled, yet often on sand, since fortunes in shares were made and lost every year -- as Richard's own fortune was. A man of his time, Richard comes in for once on a high tide with some "Australia Felix" shares he had forgotten. He drops his practice, builds a fine house, with hygienic nurseries, and an especial eye to the library, sends to London for books that can now be expected within the six months, and gives himself to the fine confused thinking common to those who were staggered by Darwin and his fellow writers in those turbid years. Meanwhile, Melbourne opened many doors to him. It was the period before the land boom. They were beginning to build not merely solid villas, but stuccoed Italian palaces the owners having money to burn.

With the third volume, and Richard's fortune gone again, we have glimpses of Melbourne through the eyes of an anxious doctor, seeking a new suburban practice in middle age, but where? Ruefully he turned his back on the sea at St. Kilda and Elsternwick, the pleasant   spot of earth in which he once believed he had found his Ultima Thule; gave the green gardens of Toorak a wide berth -- no room there for an elderly interloper!-- and explored the outer darkness of Footscray, Essendon, Moonee Ponds.

What finally decided him on the pretty little suburb of Hawthorn -- after he had prowled round, to make sure he would have the field to himself-was not alone the good country air, but a capital building lot, for sale dirt-cheap. The solid two story brick house he built there, with the last of his money and the first of his borrowings, should stand in its high-shouldered way at some corner in that pretty little suburb still.

As for Henry Handel Richardson, to whom, after all, we owe all these far-reaching hints and solid decors of the past, she was born somewhere in Victoria parade, East Melbourne, which is not a mile across from that National Gallery in which her portrait will soon be housed. Essentially Australian in outlook, for all her long residence abroad, she has portrayed, in Richard Mahony, one who deprecates and distrusts the place and the life that she herself trusts and understands. Her new book, due for publication in the English autumn, will include many short stories set in the country of her childhood and youth, and others set in the Germany she knew in the 'nineties, the Germany of "Maurice Guest."

First published in The Argus, 18 August 1934

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

Reprint: Study of a Great Novelist

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HENRY HANDEL RICHARDSON - A STUDY, by NETTIE PALMER. Sydney and London: Angus & Robertson.

It is fitting that the first long critical study of Henry Handel Richardson, considered by many discerning students Australia's greatest novelist, should be written by Nettie Palmer.

Mrs. Palmer has made a long study of this author, knew her personally, and is herself an Australian writer of discrimination and merit.

The study proceeds in biographical order, so that in the first chapter we have a clear idea of the groundwork of the trilogy from the chronicle of the Richardson family in Australia. It is followed by six chapters dealing in detail with the contents of each of Henry Handel Richardson's books.

Mrs. Palmer's close study of her author is balanced and candid, and leaves the enthusiast still able to debate whether H.H.R. merited the praise of Somerset Maugham, who called "Maurice Guest" a great novel in the sense that Tolstoy's novels were great, or whether Arthur Adams, then editor of the Red Page of the "Bulletin," can be forgiven for calling "The Fortunes of Richard Mahony" a "dull chronicle, written apparently by a retired grocer."

First published in The Argus, 12 August 1950

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

Reprint: Mary Gilmore: Australia Old and New by Nettie Palmer

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We are accustomed to thinking of Australia as new, and so it is.

   "Last sea-thing dredged by Sailor Time from space"

is the first line of a famous sonnet on Australia by Bernard O'Dowd. Yet there have been moods, and there have been groups of people in which Australia has seemed to be already old, old with the oldest sorrows and views of the old lands. With some such mood affecting a group of people, the project of "New Australia" arose in the 'nineties, and Mary Gilmore, as a girl, was touched by that emotion and joined in the project. The idea of "New Australia" was not a reform here in Australia. It was a project of escape from conditions and limitations here. Led by William Lane, a large number of men and women sailed from Australia for Paraguay, where the Government had granted a tract of land for their colony, to be run on Socialistic lines. Mary Gilmore, an energetic and enthusiastic young teacher had expressed to Lane her interest in his ideas. He challenged her, saying that if she was as interested as that she would join them. She accepted his challenge, and joined the expedition. Later on she married one of the other members, and their son was born in Paraguay. The conditions of the settlement of "New Australia" and of its later born brother, "Cosme," are now a matter of history. The difficulties out-weighed the benefits; that is most people's conclusion. The result was failure; that is generally accepted. And yet Mary Gilmore is not alone in saying that the whole costly experience was well worth whatever any one put into it. To her it meant an extraordinary deepening of her youthful years, and nothing that happened later has been able to weaken her faith in life. Most of us hope that, whatever else Mary Gilmore may write, she will not fail to give us memoirs of her Paraguay years. She has always had an ear for names and an eye for the perception of character. Memoirs written by her would have a ring and vigour about them, full of meaning both to those who knew her dramatis personae and to those who did not. She has already shown her flair for this kind of reminiscence in notes and short sketches. I think particularly of the notes appended to her most recent book of verse, "The Tilted Cart." Modestly put out as a book of verse for recitation, "The Tilted Cart" carries with it a priceless appendix of annotations to the poems.

These notes are an account of recollected details from Mary Gilmore's childhood in a country district of New South Wales.  To this day she is chiefly associated with Goulburn, where she often lives.

A Woman Poet?

Returning, then, to our Australia, which we must call old, because it is not newer. Mary Gilmore settled again about 1900. Not that such an active woman is ever "settled." Her life is always being drawn out of her by the constant demands of others. Her poems are written in snatched leisure, not in a large calm. The wonder is that they are written at all. Mary Gilmore has seemed to make a principle, almost, of this expenditure of energies, dreading the extreme alternative, that of being a fixed stone and gathering moss! Perhaps a tiny recent poem of hers expresses what I mean -- and much more. It is:--

   The Tenancy.

   I shall go as my father went,
      A thousand plans in his mind,
   With something in hand unspent,
      When death lets fall the blind.

   I shall go as my mother went,
      The ink still wet on the line:
   I shall pay no rust as rent
      For the house that is mine.

There you have a characteristic poem of Mary Gilmore's, brief yet full. She never writes as if she remembered that verse was paid for at so much a line, never spins a single thought out to make a long piece that would look imposing!  But such a poem, of course does not show the whole of Mary Gilmore. It leaves out her most characteristic quality, that of a woman. I have been blamed sometimes for writing of "women poets," as if that were something less than "poets" in general. Perhaps I should have balanced it by using some expression like "men poets," which I dislike somehow. What I meant by a woman poet, though, is a poet who gives what a woman only could give. Mary Gilmore has done this again and again. Her early book of verse, "Marri'd," had for its title poem something that came as a revelation; just a few simple verses by a woman who feels restlessly happy in the sense of keeping house for the man she loves:

   And feeling awful glad
   Like them that watched Siloam,
      And everything because
      A man is coming home!

Public Spirit.

When we feel that some one is public-spirited, we do not mean that they move in the limelight. They are usually too busy for that. Mary Gilmore has been public-spirited in countless ways, showing it both in definite acts and in an attitude of mind, a "preparedness." Sometimes she has used her pen, availing herself of what power would accrue to a conspicuously signed protest or advocacy. At other times she has used the personal influence that is hers after a long life of usefulness and creative activity. For the moment I shall name only three of her definite activities. The first has to do with her own Goulburn. There is a certain conspicuous hill which she, in common with many others, was anxious to have preserved as a memorial site. From descriptions, one gathers that the hill as it stands is a natural monument, conspicuous from overlanding trains, and easily made emphatic by a light on its summit at night. To have such a place reserved in perpetuity as a memorial seems simple and desirable enough, but every one knows that the simple and desirable things are usually attained "not without dust and heat." Mary Gilmore, by Press and other publicity, fought for the reservation of that hill. A second effort of hers that is remembered was the organisation of a public funeral for Lawson. She would say that this was the work and act of many people, and that all Australia desired it, and this is, in one sense, true; but such an act needs a definite pressure exerted at the right instant, and Mary Gilmore was able to see the right moment for that pressure and the right way of using it. The last instance of her public spirit, apart from her literary spirit, that occurs to my mind is a recent series of articles contributed to a powerful daily urging the development of interest in our blacks and their ways -- before it is wholly too late. Pointing out how this American mind has been enriched by the consciousness of the Hiawatha legends, she emphasised the need for collecting at least our aboriginal names before all their meanings and associations are forgotten. Her poem, summing up what we have lost, ends with the stanza:-

   But we, we have cut down our once green tree,
      The blossom of the past fails sere. . . .
   O that the blind would see!
      O that the deaf would hear!
   O that some brave spirit of a branch soon bare
   To save its last lone leaf would dare.

Near and Far.

Mary Gilmore's varied life has been filled with interests from near and far. Like others who returned from New Australia, she has enriched the life of our own country by means of her experiences. In a brilliant sonnet she has contrasted the two kinds of life, the wide-spreading and the small and dear. The sonnet begins with a description of some vast view across South American plains :  

    I have known distance and have drank of it!

It concludes on a tender, intimate note, naming home-loved places like Gundary, and remembering childish joys when she would go  

    To see the sun dance up on Easter morn.

She has not allowed her interests to become thinly cosmopolitan; she has never forgotten to draw nourishment from her own soil. One more thing she has remembered -- her Scottish and Irish ancestry. The home of her childhood was, as she says, among the old Scottish and Irish settlements. Her father spoke the Gaelic, and her own interest in words has always been intense. Fortunately, she has never let that be her whole interest. To her the words, after all, are only an exquisitely varied medium for expressing her rich experience of life. Her three volumes of poems and her well-known book of essays have by no means held all her published work. It is time for another book, collecting what poems have been appearing in fugitive form. One hears word, also, of varied work in manuscript awaiting publication. If this appears soon, 1928 will be a happy year in Australian letters.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 10 March 1928

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

Reprint: In Review: "Old Days; Old Ways

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This book, from the pen of Mary Gilmore, who, of course, needs no introduction to Australian readers, is one of recollections. "The writing is so personal," she explains, "that at times it seems almost something of an impertinence to thrust it upon others." Yet, impertinent or not, it is quite acceptable, and, what is more, it is justified by the reason she advances that she has ''the hope that before it is too late it may cause some who are near the passing to look back and remember, and others to gather up and keep that remembering."

Mary Gilmore's opening sentence is captivating, for it contains a wealth of meaning and food for thought. After reading the few words, many there will be who'll stop to remember, and with a sigh probably exclaim, "I know. I know."

"When butter was sixpence a pound children ate dry bread, or bread and dripping," the author wrote.

There is a veritable wealth of reminiscence in "Old Days; Old Ways," and the author, studiously, it seems, refrains from unnecessary elaborating. And all through one feels the presence of the better-known Mary Gilmore, the poet.

("Old Days; Old Ways," by Mary Gilmore, from the publishers. Angus and Robertson, Sydney.)

First published in The Sunday Times (Perth), 8 July 1934

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

Reprint: Marcus Clarke

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The bibliography of Marcus Clarke, apart from his innumerable journalistic articles, is convincing proof that hard work may go with hard-living. Within 15 years, that is from the age of 20 to his death at 35 (fifty years ago to-morrow), he produced four novels, some thirty tales, a dozen comedies and burlesques, and many pamphlets, including the notorious one on "The Future Australian Race."' But for all this prolific output only one book lives, the novel he almost accidentally began and almost heedlessly completed, "For the Term of His Natural Life.'' The nature of his pamphleteering may be judged from the summing up of his "Future Australian Race": "The conclusion of all this, therefore, is that in another 100 years the average Australian will be a tall, coarse, strong-jawed, greedy, pushing, talented man, excelling in swimming and horsemanship. His religion will be a form of Presbyterianism; his national policy a Democracy, tempered by the rate of exchange." Most of his prognostications are absurd; the only prophetic note for 1931 is in his Parthian shot- "a Democracy tempered by the rate of exchange." Among his bush sketches "Pretty Dick" holds a place in anthologies as his best, but the tendency to exaggeration, especially of pathos, mars most of them. His poetry has been condemned as album verses. His most poignant verses are indeed to be found in a poem under that heading:

   So some poor tavern haunter steeped in wine,
      With staggering footsteps through the streets returning,
   Seeing through gathering gloom a sweet light shine
      From household lamp in happy window burning,
   May pause an instant in the wind and rain
      To gaze on that sweet scene of love and duty,
   But turns into the wild, wet night again
      Lest his sad presence mar its holy beauty.

Two charges have been laid against Marcus Clarke. The first derives from his brilliant preface to Gordon's Poems, which some have alleged to be a hopeless misreading of the bush. "What," he asks, "is the dominant note of Australian scenery? That which is the dominant note of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry -- weird   melancholy. . . . The Australian mountain forests are funereal, secret, stern. Their solitude is desolation. They seem to stifle in their black gorges a story of sullen despair," and so on.

The late F. M. Robb, of Melbourne, editor of the Oxford Gordon, supports Marcus Clarke. "We have known sleepless men, not easily moved by fear, camped out at night on the slopes of its unpeopled mountains, waking their sleeping fellows to cry, 'For God's sake, speak to me,' so awful has the indescribable silence become that the desolation and mournfulness of it seem to have been concrete and living, and as if moving to smite and fell one with a blow."   "This," he adds, "is true and will remain true until our scenery has become humanised and made accessible and near and familiar as the akes and valleys and hills and meadows of the Old World have been made by the love and music and vision of generations of poets.'' In the other charge Marcus Clarke is taken to task for telling the story of Port Arthur in convict days in a great but un-Australian novel, which has done Australia much harm. "It depicts life in British prisons controlled by British officials, and has no more relation to ordinary colonial life than the diary of a governor of Dartmoor would have to the life of a Devonshire farmer." But surely only stupid people could gain a false impression of Australia at this time of day from Marcus Clarke's tremendous novel. If the convicts were not Australians, neither were the pioneers, and "Geoffrey Hamlyn" would be as little Australian as "For the Term of His Natural Life," which, at least, has added a phrase to our Australian vocabulary. It must be freely admitted that the novel has its grave defects. The brutalities and degradations are all founded on facts to be found in the convict annals of Tasmania, but the novelist who gathers them all together within the ambit of his single story strains to the breaking-point our sense of probability. The initial improbability lies in the series of events that lead up to the transportation of Devine or Dawes. "Nor was there any necessity for so desperate an expedient as a mutiny on the convict ship as planned by Sarah Purfoy, seeing she could have far more easily have freed her lover by having him as her assigned servant after the voyage. Nor are these the only flaws. The death of Mrs. Vicars and Sylvia's loss of memory are too "pat" for the creation of the false impression that Frere and not Dawes was the hero of the marooning episode after the seizure of the Osprey at Hell Gates. Sylvia's marriage with the stony-hearted Frere is also an artistic flaw of the most obvious kind. Dawes himself, whose sufferings accumulate relentlessly one on the other, as on Oedipus in Greek tragedy, is a shadowy figure. Besides, Marcus Clarke does not mitigate the atmosphere of gloom and brutality, as Shakespeare knew how to do, by making the gloom the more impressive for the gleams of contrast. Yet when all these defects are marshalled -- defects enough one might think to damn the book -- the merits of the novel are greater, and because of these it has prospered. It cannot rank among the great novels of the world because of the patent defects in its construction, but, as Green says, "it is one of the most powerfully written novels in English." Not only does Dawes become terrible in his sufferings, but some of the minor characters are intensely alive, and some of the incidents intensely dramatic. Sarah Purfoy is real flesh and blood. Gabbett's struggle during the mutiny with Frere, and afterwards with the sailors, is thrilling. No less so is the ruse by which Frere gains the captured pistol from Kavanagh in the Sydney barracks. The story itself moves on to its irresistible end with the murky velocity of Macbeth, leaving the normal world behind as it traverses the shades.

The late Lord Rosebery, who, during his brief visit to Australia in 1884, befriended the novelist's widow, wrote to Hamilton Mackinnon, the editor of the memorial volume, "Long ago I fell upon 'His Natural Life' by accident, and read it not once nor twice, but many times at different periods. Since then I have frequently given away copies to men whose opinions I valued, and have always received from them the same opinion as to the extraordinary value of the book. There can, indeed, I think, be no two opinions as to the horrible fascination of the book. . . . To me, I confess, it is the most terrible of all novels, more terrible than 'Oliver Twist ' or Victor Hugo's most startling effects, for the simple reason that it is more real. It has all the solemn ghastliness of truth." "I fancy," he added in a note to Mrs. Clarke, "that your husband's works are not sufficiently appreciated in Australia. ... I cannot but believe that the time will come when Australians will feel a melancholy pride in this true son of genius . . . and in England you may find that, like another power in letters, not dissimilar in genius -- I mean Emily Bronte -- he may have made up to him in posthumous honour what was lacking in his lifetime." Lord Rosebery's expectation has not been belied. The star of Marcus Clarke has risen from the mists that vexed it while he lived, to become one of the luminous fixed stars in our literary firmament.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 1 August 1931

Marcus Clarke was born in London in 1846 and died in Melbourne in 1881. 

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

Note: you can read a number of Clarke's works courtesy of Project Gutenberg Australia.

Reprint: "A Writer of Books": Sent to Gaol for Vagrancy

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In his memorial poem on Marcus Clarke, the late Henty Kendall sung of --

     "The lot austere
   That ever seems to wait upon
   The man of letters here."

but probably Kendall, pessimistic as he was, would scarcely have dreamt of the fate accorded Gustav Huton at the City Court yesterday. Huton described himself as a "writer of books" in the watchhouse charge sheet, but Plain-clothes Constable Colby accused him of being a vagrant and a maker of fies on the banks of the Yarra.  Huton, it appears, constructed a mia-mia at the foot ot Government-house hill some days ago, and it has been his habit since to build fires and otherwise imperil the public weal. He wore long hair, and a longer overcoat, and Corby informed the Court that these covered a multitude of defects in the way of dirt and tatters.

"I may not look respectable," observed the accused, "but I can write you a good book."  

"What is he?" asked Mr Cook, the chairman of the bench, while Messrs. Lancashire, Andrews, and Cherry, the remaining J.P.'s, regarded prisoner with evidentinterest.

"You do not understand; all of you. You think me a wretch and all this, but I can write you a first-class book. Marie Corelli isn't in it with me; only the department took all my money from me, and, your Worships, allow me to correct one little error. The sergeant here said that I was up last time for vagrancy. That is not true; it was for threatening to commit suicide, about the most stupid charge the police could invent. I think I have pretty clearly explained my position," concluded the accused, but the Bench evidently failed to comprehend the explanation, and sent "the writer of books" to gaol for 12 months. 

First published in The Argus, 22 April 1897

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

Reprint: "The Secret Key": George Essex Evans's New Book

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Only a few weeks ago the "Queenslander" published one of the most remarkable evidences of the revenue of time that has occured in the literary world of Australia. The late John Farrell had written in unappreciative words of the poems of George Essex Evans, and when it came to the erection of the Farrell memorial the verses selected from Australian work for inscription upon it were those of the Queensland poet. Of the three verses of this poem the second is here given -- given as one of the best things in the way of memorial verse ever penned in our land:

   Build him no mockery of stone,
      Nor shame him with your idle praise;
   He liveth in his work alone
         Through all our days.

   Sleep, heart of gold, 'twas not in vain
      You loved the struggling and the poor
   And taught in sweet yet strenuous strain
         To battte and endure.

Before this John Farrell incident there was a general demand for a new book from Evans, but when the Sydney papers announced the selection of the Queenslander's work for the purpose stated the demand became a clamour, in New South Wales at least. The handsome volume now to hand from Messrs. Angus and Robertson is the result. This book contains about sixty pieces all in the best style of the poet, and of these the Commonwealth Ode (which was awarded the fifty guinea prize by the Commonwealth Government), and about twenty other poems have not hitherto apppeared in book form. This book should determine George Essex Evans's place in Australian literature up to the present time, and though the writer believes that the poet's great work has yet to be done, there is in "The Secret Key and Other Verses" sufficient to enshrine him in the hearts of all lovers of literature, to say nothing of the lovers of Australian literature. Evans would prefer to be judged on the common plane of letters, for letters in the wider sense have no restricting ambit of parish or continent. Before going to the new material which is now put within covers for the world to praise or blaspheme -- and the world will assuredly do both -- the writer has no hesitation in saying that gleaming from out of the two hundred and odd pages, there is one imperishable gem, "The Song of Gracia," written nearly twenty years ago, but evidently written under an inspiration. It has within it the finest elements of thought and poetic beauty, as well as an ineffable delicacy of expression.   Few Australian writers have approached it. It was written when Evans was a very young man, struggling into recognition with his virile, if somewhat crude, songs -- songs which smashed down occasional opposition of the intellect and went straight to the heart. And now to refer to what will to the general mass of readers be new work. "The Secret Key," from which the title of the volume is taken, is a fine bit of constructive thought, with the gorgeousness at times of Marlowe, and yet with a polish which indicates careful inner criticism -- a rather dangerous thing with one whose mission is to create. This poem -- probably it will be extended some day -- we may give as illustrative of the latest of the poet's work:

   There is a magic kingdom of strange powers,
   Thought-hidden, lit by other stars than ours;
   And, when a wanderer through its mazes brings
   Word of things seen, men say: "A poet sings."
   Its gates are guarded in a sterile land ---
   Mountain, and deep morass, and shifting sand;
   Storm-barred are they, and may not opened be
   Save by the hand that finds the secret key.
   That key, some say, lies in the sunset glow,
   Or the white arc of dawn, or where the flow
   Of some lone river stems the shoreward wave
   In shuddering silver on its ocean grave.
   Some say that when the wind wars with the sea,
   In that stern music, one may find the key;
   Or, in green glooms of forests, where the pine
   Uplifts her spear amid great wreaths of vine,
   Or, where the steaming mist's white rollers climb
   The dark ravine and precipice sublime ---
   A filmy sea that twines and intertwines
   Wreathes the low hills, and veils the mighty lines
   Of sovran mountains, crimsoned and aglow
   In crystal pomp, crested with jewelled snow;
   But still, with souls afire, men seek that land,
   And die in deep morass and drifting sand.
   To those alone its iron gates are free,
   Who find, within their hearts, the secret key;
   For Earth, with all the colour of her day,
   Is not their country --- that lies far away.

"That" in the last line is italicised. Another work of much power is "The Sword of Pain." This was written after Evans had gone through a serious opera-tion in the Toowoomba Hospital, but there is nothing sordid in the work; in deed, it glows with magnificent imagery and preaches a sermon of spiritual beauty and eternal confidence. All that is well shown in the concluding lines:

   Behold I saw in purest air afar
      A great light dawn and widen and increase,
   With white flame crested like a perfect star,
      Above the Sword of Pain -- the Crown of Peace!

Again, among the new things is "Cymru," which men of Welsh blood will read for its splendid expression of the history of their land, and all who relish a great flow of sustained energy and brilliant work will revel in, because it gives them these things. Take these three poems, "The Secret Key," "The Sword of Pain," and "Cymru,'' and it will be difficult to find their equal in all that has been done in our land by the poets living or those who are taking their rest. But the things named do not make the volume; there are other things, old friends and new, which appeal to the heart and to the intellect. There are the philosophies of the poet and his simple songs, and his railings at conditions, and sometimes his scoldings, and the bulk of that fine narrative poem, "Loraine." From "Out of the Silence" the first four verses are given:

   Here in the silence cometh unto me
      A song that is not mine,
      With wash of waves along the cold shore line,
   And sob of wind, and rain upon the sea.
   It is the song and message of the dead!
      Around my soul to-night
      I feel the kinship of the Infinite,
   I hear the sound of voices that are fled.
   And as beneath the viewless angel's wing
      Bethesda's pool was stirred.
      My heart is troubled by the mystic word
   Of one who through my soul and lips would sing.
   There is no note of wailing in the strain,
      But resonant and deep,
      Out of the vastness, doth the music sweep,
   Into the silence dieth it again.

The poem is altogether beautiful, and it would be a joy to further quote. Those who enjoy Evans's more earthy key will find him in "The Average Man," "A Commonplace Song," " The Wheels of the System," "Ode to the Philistines," and in other places. The apostrophe to Toowoomba, "The Mountain Queen," is in the style of a laureate, but none the less a good thing. Taking the book by and large, it well deserves the best welcome Australia can give it, and it may be remarked that it comes just at a happy time, at a time when folk are puzzled what to send to friends in or out of Australia. What better Christmas gift could there be from a Queenslander than the fine work of a Queensland poet, work of which every Queenslander and every Australian may be proud of, so filled is it with dignity and with charm.

First published in The Queenslander, 29 December 1906

Note: you can read the full text of The Secret Key and Other Verses by George Essex Evans courtesy of Australian Digital Collections from The University of Sydney.

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: George Essex Evans

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Sir, - In your interesting sketch of G. Essex Evans in to-day's issue you omit all reference to his residence in Gympie, in the latter eighties. He was then land agent there, and I came in frequent contact with him -- we both boarded at May Villa, kept by Mrs. Rowe. We became intimate, and I remember perusing the manuscript of his poem, "The Repentance of Magdelen Despair," at his request. It was published in the Queenslander. I noticed some erasures in the first sheet. He suffered from acute deafness at that time, and it was my custom to pour into his ears some liquid from a bottle. He was always genial, but quiet. He was full of pluck, as on one occasion he gave an obnoxious boarder a richly deserved thrashing. He introduced some collie dogs, which were kept in the back yard. He was, I think, a dog fancier. I found him rather sensitive. On one occasion he asked me to scan some poetry he had composed, but as I was writing a letter to catch the evening mail I asked him to wait a few minutes. He didn't return, however. He made many friends in Gympie, and his early death was much regretted. He was a great poet, and, as a man, strictly just and fair in his judgments.

- I am. sir. &c

E. W. SMITH.

Sandgate, October 14. 

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 18 October 1927

Note: the "sketch" referred to in the first sentence of this letter can be read here.

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

It takes more than two generations to create a distinctive national character, but we can see, even in that time, that something has been done. The patronising judgment of a leading English journal 30 years ago that the Australian was merely the Englishman in a warm climate, and with more primitive conditions, would not be repeated now. Our climate, in spite of its drawbacks of excessive heat and dryness in summer, is a better one than that of the British Isles, and our conditions can be modified and improved by Australian enterprise and Australian commonsense. Federation must play a part in the development of patriotism, and in time it will lessen the jealousy of the states with regard to each other, though in early days it may appear to intensify it. It is, perhaps, when we travel abroad, and came upon the seed of the eucalyptus planted in California or near Rome, or have a sight of wattle bloom grown in an English hothouse, that the strong ties that bind us to our fair Southern Land are most keenly felt. But what is the figure that the Australian makes in the literature which is indigenous to its soil? Henry Kendall and Marcus Clarke and Adam Lindsay Gordon struck the keynote of pessimism; and in prose as well as in verse the deadbeat, the remittance man, the gaunt shepherd with his starving flocks and herds, the free selector on an arid patch, the drink shanty where the rouseabouts and shearers knock down their cheques, the race meeting where high and low, rich and poor, are filled with the gambler's spirit and cursed with the gambler's ill-luck, fill the foreground of the picture of Australian life. There are occasional episodes more cheerful and more tender, but the impression given to the outside world is that in the fight with Nature, which is man's task everywhere, he is oftener worsted in Australia than anywhere else. Misfortune is more picturesque than prosperity. Balzac said vice was better for literary purposes than virtue, and there is a modern wave of pessimism in literature which is felt all over the world. Australia, being the most distant place where the black sheep of the family can be sent, has been utilized for the relegation of the unfit -- who may come back for another tug at the paternal pursestrings -- and the remittance man, who is promised pecuniary help so long as he remains where he is sent; and these may be called picturesque, but they are neither useful nor ornamental.

Australia's splendid climate has tempted hundreds and thousands of delicate men who could not live and work in England to make the change to the antipodes, in many cases with the greatest success. In all the professions, especially in the Church and in the press, Australia's intellectual life has been enriched by tbe labours of such men, whom nothing but health would have induced to leave the land of their birth. Dr. Andrew Garran, who died last year at the age of 75, had 50 years of good work on the press -- of Adelaide first, and then on that of Sydney -- and in the New South Wales Legislaure, after having wintered in Madeira, where there was no work to do, and where there was a depressing population of invalids. No one had a higher idea of the pleasantness of Australian life, or of the greatness of the Australian future, than this veteran journalist to the end of his life. We should not take the opinions of wealthy Australian travellers picking out the English summer, going to the most lovely spots, moving from place to place, and impressed by the completeness and the finish of all the arrangements made for their comfort, but we should see how young Australians who have to live all the year round in London, in Manchester, or in Edinburgh, long for the bright skies, the pure air, the grand vistas of their native land. The tales told "While the Billy Boils" are not all tragedies. There are deadbeats all over the world, more's the pity, but the Australian tramp is not so wretched as the tramp where the rain it raineth every day, or where frost and snow intensify the pangs of hunger and the need of shelter and fire.

No one would think in reading the poems and sketches which are said to be so characteristic of Australia that the prevalent note of Australia is good humour and commonsense. This is what Mr. Percy Rowland, writing in The Nineteenth Century for September, after some years' residence in Australia, emphatically declares; but, curiously, he says that though there is so much good humour, there is not much original humour. Our omnibus drivers and cabbies have not the skill in repartee of the Irish jarvie or of the London bus driver. But he owns that we can appreciate a joke when we hear it, and that is a step in the right direction. We are still sensitive to outside criticism -- the Americans were so up to their great civil war -- but if Anthony Trollope revisited us from the Shades he would not find Australians so addicted to blow as they were. We had not a civil war -- we had a financial crisis which did us much good. The Australian is a born speculator, sprung from a race of speculators; but since the crisis enterprise has been directed more towards production, and there have been continuous, varied, aud patient experiments, individual and co-operative, to make the best and the most of the soil and the climate and the labour we have. Where is there a more patient, polite, or good-humoured crowd than in Australia? Visitors from England and foreign countries at the inauguration of the Commonwealth in Sydney, and at the opening of the Federal Parliament by the Duke of York in Melbourne, could not admire too much the orderly, well dressed, cheerful, crowds who waited hours on the line of march. Even our race meetings command the praise that they are managed better and are more respectable than such gatherings elsewhere. Why should our poets and storytellers ignore the joyousness of Australian life, the eagerness with which outings are organised for old and young for both sexes, not only excursions by day but moonlight trips in summer, where the billy is boiled and simple fare is eaten with relish? How few think that the ubiquitous sandwich sacred to picnics, and such hospitality as is open to slender means, was introduced by Lord Sandwich, an inveterate gambler, to prevent the high play in which he delighted being interrupted by the impertinence of supper? An epigram of the time couples him with a brother peer, Lord Spencer, who also made an innovation, but his was in dress:--

   Two noble lords whom, if I quote,
      Some folks will call me Sinner;
   The one invented half a coat,
      The other half a dinner.

Ralph Nickleby may keep the memory of the Spencerian literature, but the sandwich will live as long as the Sandwich Islands, which also had their name, from the worthless First Lord of the Admiralty. Australia has one great handicap- - to use an appropriate phrase, for the horse-loving Commonwealth -- in its prolonged and excessive droughts, but these are not universal: and the enterprise and the patience and the capital of the Australians will minimise the evils when they can be dealt with, and their prudence will lead them to leave hopeless districts   severely alone. We want, as Matthew Arnold says of life, "to see Australia steadily and to see it whole." The one-sided pictures which our pessimistic poets and writers present are false in the impression they make on the outside world and on ourselves. They lead us to forget the beauty and the brightness of the world we life in.

First published in The Register, 22 November 1902

Note: this piece was originally published as an editorial in the Adelaide newspaper without a byline.  However, the piece was later reprinted in Catherine Helen Spence, UQP, 1987.

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

Reprint: Obituary: Miss Catherine Spence

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Adelaide. April 3.

Miss Catherine Helen Spence, whose writtings on social and political subjects are known all over the world, died at her residence, Kent Town, early this morning. She was 84 years of age.

The late Miss Catherine Helen Spence, authoress and literary writer, was the president of the Effective Voting League of South Australia, and vice-president of the National Council of Women. She was born at Melrose, in Scotland, on October 31, 1825, and was a daughter of David Spence, writer and banker, her mother being Helen Brodie, who had descended from a long line of tenant farmers in East Lothian. She arrived in South Australia with her parents in November, 1839. Since 1859 the main object of her life was electoral reform -- the Hare-Spence system of proportional representation or effective voting -- in which cause she lectured throughout South Australia and in other States and delivered about a hundred lectures in United States, America, and Canada, and also interested herself in the children of the State. The movement made by Miss C. E. Clark in 1872 to take these out of institutions and place them in family homes was joined by her, and after 13 years' work on the Boarding-out Committee she was appointed a member of the State Children's Council, with which she had been associated since 1886. She was a member of the Destitute Board since 1896. She sat on the Adelaide Hospital Commission in 1895, and was president of the Wo- man's Co-operative Clothing Factory. She held a commission from the South Australian Government in 1893 to inquire into educational, constitutional, and electoral laws, the management of benevolent institutions, and the question of bimetallic currency, especially to take part in the congresses held in Chicago in that year. She had written extensively for the South Australian Press since 1878, more particularly the "Register," and she contributed numerous articles to "Fraser's Magazine," "Cornhill," "Harper's," "Melbourne Review," "Victorian Review," the "Centennial," and other magazines and journals, and she was the author of several works, including "Clara Morison" (a novel in two volumes, 1854), "Tender and True" (two volumes, 1856), "Mr. Hogarth's Will" (three volumes, 1865), "The Author's Daughter" (three volumes, 1867), "Gathered In" (novel), and "The Laws We Live Under, with some chapters on Elementary Political Economy and the Duties of Citizens" (published under the direction of the South Australian Education Department, 1880). She lectured for many years on literary subjects, and filled Unitarian pulpits in Australia and America. She was a candidate for the Federal Convention in 1897 on the one issue of electoral reform, and received 7,500 votes, which were insufficient for election.

First published in Western Mail, 9 April 1910

Note: Catherine Helen Spence died in Adelaide on 3 April 1910.

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

Reprint: Mr. Halloran's Poems

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Poems, Odes, Songs. By Henry Halloran, C.M.G.

Sydney : Turner and Henderson.

Amid the multitude of Jubilee poems and odes by great and small, those from Mr. Halloran's pen have no unworthy place. There is a vast difference between verse made to order and that which springs directly from a real emotion or feeling. Much that has been written by men of world-wide fame upon the Queen and the Jubilee is tame, unreal, and calculated to make the mind antagonistic to any poetical expressions of the spirit of the time. Not without dread would the critic naturally pick up Mr. Halloran's tastefully edited book of "Poems, Songs, and Odes," dedicated in a sonnet to Lady Carrington, but there is cause to be thankful that there is something worth quoting in this book on this now wearying subject. Lord Tennyson's ode was a dismal failure. Mr. Lewis Morris's was laboured and unmusical, however careful and classical it was in form, and the hosts of others were no better, and principally worse. Where many masters have failed it would be too much to expect Mr. Halloran to succeed, and it would be unjust to him and to the public to say that the peoms are altogether worthy. But there is a reality, a spontaneity, and a genuineness about many of the verses that go far to disarm criticism. There are undoubtedly too many poems of the same kind in the volume, and the old ideas are worked over and over again, but they are evidently the gleanings of many years, and show a continued attitude of loyalty to the throne, as well as many fine thoughts of of a mind accustomed to speak in numbers. The very honesty of the poetical purpose commands respect, and the lines are not infrequent which would not look ill beside the work of greater men. However little one may agree with the excess of feeling which pervades the volume, there is enough that is good in it to merit praise and to entitle Mr. Halloran to a hearing on his theme. The following lines, from an ode on the anniversary of the birth of her Majesty, are indicative of the tenor of the volume and of the musical force that is in it :

  "The banners of crimson and gold
      Rise high in the bright May sun --  
   And the air is crisp and cold,
      And the stars fade one by one:
   The wave has the hue of the sky,
      And the earth has been freshened by rain;
   If we sigh, not for sorrow we sigh
      For there's joy both of heart and of brain;   
   This day is the day of the year
      That should banish all sorrow and spleen;
   While we loyally join in each cheer
      Of "Health and Long Life to the Queen;"
   Be there one who holds back from the cheer
      Let him perish of sorrow and spleen.

      * * * * *

   Far from the land where She dwells --
      That royal old land of the North --
   The spirit of loyalty swells
      In the bosoms of Manhood and Worth:   
   Our people in marlow and bone --
      Though ocean may thunder between- -
   Stand true to the death, to the Throne,
      Stand loyal to death, to the Queen."

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 July 1887

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

Now that authors' week is over in Brisbane, the very building that housed its proceedings is being demolished like the glass of fervent, Young Lochinvar. ("He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup," you will remember.) Well, what remains? It is interesting, I think, to notice one of the aspects of Authors' Week in Melbourne, and to wonder how the same plan would have gone in Brisbane. The President of the Australian Literature Society in Melbourne suggested a public plebiscite as to the twelve best Australian writers in verse and prose, sending in his own list as a first kite to try the wind. Please notice that the president's original idea was for people to send in lists of the six best writers in prose and verse, and his own list included several well-known names and several that were quite obscure. This was as it should be, since popularity and high quality can only occasionally coincide. No sooner was the stone well rolling, however, than the scheme was of quite a different nature. Every one who sent in a list was sending names of the most popular writers, or, if some comparatively unknown names appeared, it would be because their sender thought they ought to be popular very soon. No room was left for the good but obscure. Thus people were soon contributing rather to other people's preferences than to their own. So-and-so could not well he mentioned because nobody else had mentioned him, which meant that he was not popular. Meanwhile, though, there were the fifty or so who were mentioned at the very first. Their supporters at any rate could not all have believed that they were naming the six most popular poets and novelists in Australia. Some of those first names must have been the utterance of a genuine preference. Let us see what some of these obscure chosen writers can do.

Shaw Neilson.

In one of the first lists sent in, four of the poets were really safe, secured even by having left this world many years ago. I think their names were Brunton Stephens, Kendall, Alfred Domett, and Gordon. These writers are in the textbooks, and can he taken more or less for granted. Even people who never read them will recommend them to you. The remaining two were Hubert Church, the New Zealander, and Shaw Neilson, the Victorian. Neither of these is one of our "popular" poets. Their supporter obviously held them up for their intrinsic goodness. Shaw Neilson and Hubert Church can both endure the fierce light of criticism. What they chiefly suffer from is a complaint well known to our poets, the complaint called neglect. This neglect is not purposely applied, like a draught of poison: People do not say,"X is a bad poet, so I shall neglect him!" On the contrary, they say nothing about X, they have never heard of him, for there are no solid Australian reviews where X is discussed. When his book appears, it gets a few lines of brief notice, probably appreciative, but at once forgotten. Even the name of the book is forgotten, and the name of the poet. And yet, leaving Hubert Church out for this time, Shaw Neilson is an easy name to remember -- John Shaw Neilson. His first volume, published belatedly in 1919, was called "Heart of Spring." Its publisher was the "Bookfellow," ' which means A. G. Stephens, the veteran critic and brilliant journalist, who has never ceased to exalt the name of Shaw Neilson during these twenty-five years and more. "Heart of Spring" in a small but satisfactory edition was widely sold, but not to most of the people who read and follow general poetry. It is doubtful, for instance, if it reached Brisbane at all, so that Brisbane poetry-lovers would have a chance to choose or neglect it. They would not do well to neglect that book. More than most books, it was written with a man's heart-blood. Frail of physique and with failing sight for many years, Shaw Neilson has had to do heavy manual labour such as leaves a man exhausted in his leisure. Yet when his poems take shape, you would say they were the work of some favoured human being, some one enjoying an almost celestial freedom from earthly cares :--

   -Listen ! The young girl said. There calls
      No voice, no music beats on me;
   But it is almost sound; it falls
      This evening on the Orange Tree.

Shaw Neilson's poems are not realistic descriptions of the life about him. They are distilled from that life transmuted in the fine chambers of his quiet mind. Perhaps the best whole poem to quote is "May." It is a poem, that reflects the Victorian winter landscape! reflects it in a parable, echoes it in a gentle song -- never "reproduces" it. That is not Shaw Neilson's way.   

These are the quiet four stanzas :

   MAY.     

   Shyly the silver-hatted mushrooms make
      Soft entrance through,
   And undelivered lovers, half awake,
      Hear noises in the dew.  

   Yellow in all the earth and in the skies,
      The world would seem
   Faint as a widow mourning with soft eyes
      And falling into dream.    

   Up the long hill I see the slow plough leave  
      Furrows of brown....
   Dim is the day and beautiful; I grieve
      To see the sun go down.  

   But there are suns a many for mine eyes,
      Day after day.
   Delightsome in grave greenery they rise
      Red oranges in May.

With Neilson's poetry, the surrender has been complete. The poet has grasped the one fundamental reason for making a poem -- that he has something to say for which reasoned prose would be inadequate. What he says would sometimes have no meaning in prose. In poetry, it sings its way into the spirit, doing what prose could never do. He sings again:

   Let your song be delicate.
      The skies declare
   No war--the eyes of lovers
      Wake everywhere.  

   Let your voice be delicate.
      The bees are home:
   All their day's love is sunken
      Safe in the comb.

Neilson Sung.

These frail, exquisite lines were written as complete in themselves, yet their vowels are so well spaced, and, on the other hand, modern song composers have come to have such a respect, indeed, such a passion, for sheer poetry, that it has been possible to set some of Shaw Neilson's finest lyrics to music. Dr. Whittaker, the well-known English musician and choir-leader, has done this in several instances. For most of us, though, there is already an abundant and complete music present in the poems themselves, if we never hear them sung. Neilson begins to be known through Dr. Whittaker, through A. G. Stephens, and through other less articulate but constant lovers. Still, it is inconceivable that he should ever be a "popular" poet, like "Banjo" Paterson, for instance. Yet popularity is taken as a standard of excellence! Our hearts may leap to the warm, human feeling that throbs through Paterson's ringing verse; yet we feel that Shaw Neilson's shy muse has her finger nearer to the central pulse of the world. We can see why several people, knowing Shaw Neilson's songs and brooding over them, would in all sincerity write him down as one of our greatest and purest singers.

"The Heart of Spring" is out of print; so, I think, is its successor, "Ballad and Lyrical Poems," published in 1923. While waiting for a new edition of these, we can content ourselves, very soon, with a volume that has just been announced as due in November. "New Poems," by Shaw Neilson, will contain a large group of poems written against all odds, during the last three years. Quietly, slowly, the work of Shaw Neilson is becoming known, its sweetness permeating our literature with its own contribution of individual fragrance:

   It is the white plum-tree,
      Seven days fair,
   As a bride goes showing
      Her joy of hair.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 29 October 1927

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

Reprint: The Wattle in Poetry by A.G. Stephens

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It isn't. One would say it cannot be; were it not that poetry still here and there succeeds in swathing the most unpoetical words with an atmosphere of beauty; like the moss that (with time and moisture and a little soil) will even grow on a rusty old kerosene tin.

But poetry is a daughter of music; and there are discords in which music, with the best will and the finest instrument, becomes only noise. Many words, such as kitchen, quagmire, wattle, make a discord in poetical language.

Wattle is worse, because it makes a specious appeal to the popular poetical device of rhyme. Many of our early swagmen have died poetically beneath a wattle -- which, as far as my knowledge extends, is one of the last trees a swagman would choose to die under; if a choice were given him.

But the association between the view obvious wattle and the appropriate rhyme of "bottle" is clear; and there is the easy rhyme of "throttle." So the early poet meditated; and the poem leaves his throttle like a blessing from the bottle that consoles the weary swagman as he dies beneath the wattle.

Later poets dare not write so; though some of them apparently would like to: but civilisation has marched; and they dimly feel that those rhymes are below their dignity. Yet -- "cottle," "glottal," "pottle," "tattle," "twattle," -- what else? An excellent but desperate poetess has tried "mottle"--

   All noon, where the noon-lights mottle,
   I lie and listen, Wattle!

It is not happy.

Other poetesses have discreetly dodged the rhyme:

   "Why should not wattle do
      For mistletoe?"
   Asked one (there were but two)
      Where wattles grow.

And the poetical maiden answered prettily:

   "Since it is here, and you,
      I do not know,
   Why wattle should not do."

Much can be done with "wattle bloom" and "wattle-blossom" to soften the gurgling, choking sound that naturally reminded the pioneers of a death-rattle. One of the best wattle poems uses an effective refrain, "when wattles bloom":

   When wattles bloom the airs are sweet with Spring:
      Far-off, the misty, purple mountains loom;
   The woodlands with the wild birds' echoes ring
      When wattles bloom.

And the sound can be smothered in a wave of emotion:

   The golden eve is round me now,
      And golden dews are falling;
   And through the golden wattle's glow
      The golden past is calling:
   Calling, "Don't strip the wattle, Joe!  
      Don't strip the wattle!
   Joe, let the wattle grow!"
   Oh, her voice so sweet and low,
      Calling !

Kendall's sensitive ear rejected wattle for "mimosa," a literary use now rare, once not uncommon:

   The low mimosa droops with locks
      Of yellow hair in dewy glade.

Our "wattle," indeed, is now the world's "mimosa." Beyond Australia you hear only of wattle-bark, many years exported for tanning leather. "Mimosa" -- Australian mimosa acclimatised, with its source long forgotten -- floods Southern France and Italy, and burgeons in North Africa. Mimosa has sent the Americas, North and South, into raptures; it is even ostracised as too popular. Says a writer in "The Bookman," New York, for June last:

"The outstanding feature in the drama of the past season has been the elimination of mimosa as piano decoration. Ever since 1922 our entire dramatic scheme has been dominated by this yellow blossom. But in the fall of 1928 the managers took the matter into their own hands. Mimosa was out."

Our name "wattle" is good old English applied by Governor Phillip's first makers of "wattle-and-daub" huts; interlacing and covering with clay the flexible branches of the wattle. Its utilitarian meaning is to twist or plait; without reference to the golden blossoms that never grew in England, to "wartle" like the warts on the neck of a turkey-gobbler.

For poetical purposes, mimosa is preferred; and already many mimosa poems have been written in the United States; where our wattle-blossom is being absorbed as a national flower, as our eucalyptus has been annexed as a national tree. It is conceivable that, at some distant day, there may even be more mimosa blooms beyond Australia than there are wattle blooms within Australia. Meanwhile, with their national treasury of scented gold, Wattle Days dawn anew.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 10 August 1929

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

Reprint: Victor Daley and John Farrell

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Daley met Farrell in Queanbeyan a quarter of a century ago. Farrell was then engaged on the unpoetical work of brewing beer -- later, when he wrote poetry and leading articles, he used to say "the more congenial work." Victor Daley, a young, fresh-blooded Irishman, walked into Queanbeyan one day, and got a job on the "Times'' of that town, then owned by Mr. John A. O''Neill. He went to live with O'Neill, who soon recognised he had made a good bargain, for Daley's work made the "'Times" a new paper, and people bought it because of its cleverness and its novel features. Farrell and Daley both put a lot of their early verse into it, and many a fine joke they used to tell about those days afterwards. One of them is worth narrating. The town had just been incorporated, and the numicipal elections were approaching. The temperance people banded themselves together. Farrell (the brewer!) went to O'Neill. "We'll have to fight these good temperance folk," he said with his fine, rich, Irish brogue. And O'Neill told him he could use his paper in ''the cause of fairplay." There was a meeting one night in opposition to the temperance party, and one man in the audience kept making interjectings. "Who is the man who is interjecting ?" it was demanded from the platform. "The man who will be Mayor," came the reply. And the man's name was Nathan Moses Lazarus. That week Farrell wrote these hitherto unquoted lines for the Queanbeyan "Times":-  

   Will he be Mayor? He may or may not,    
      The choice of the voters is often the oddest;
   But anyhow people keep saving "Great Scott!"
      Was ever a man so delightfully modest?"
   He don't ask our voice, but gives us his own,  
      Yet Friday will portion the thorns and the roses ;
   And when the numbers are publicly known        
      We'll see whether Nathan is reckoned our Moses!

There is Irish humor in this skit, and it seems to have had its effect,for Lazarus, though he made a very estimable alderman, was not elected Mayor. For a time Farrell and Daley contented themselves with writing jingle like this. One day a deaf and dumb comp. named Jordan drew on the whitewashed plaster above the fire a picture intended to represent a little angel of about seven summers banging a drum. Daley wrote these lines below it:-  

   Lord, give me in the realms of bliss
      No measly harp to strum,
   But let me sit and bang like this
      An everlasting drum.
 

Fancy Daley ever having written such a word as "measly." But these are types of early efforts of twin souls ere they had more fully cultivated the Muses. Besides, Daley drew a thick line between poetry and verse. "Write us some poetry, Mr. Daley," said one of the comps. on one occasion, pointing to the drum and angel. "That's not poetry, my boy; that's verse," said Daley.    

As some one has already pointed out, Queanbeyan 20 years ago was what might aptly be described as a Mecca for literary pilgrims. Why ? O'Neill. His heart was so big and he was doing so worldly well that any man fallen on evil days -- especially if he were Irish -- could be sure of his lending a helping hand. Moreover, it is just within the bounds of possibility that those who had tasted of his hospitality used to '"pass the word on," as tramps are said to do, and it was no uncommon thing for minor poets to travel down from Sydney tired of Riot, to take refuge at this Writers' Rest. Several names recur to me, but they don't concern us now. Daley, Farrell, and others who were making their way up the literary ladder, were oftentimes found smoking their pipes together in Queanbeyan. The two I have named were practically fast friends for life. Practically starting out together, it is curious how they stuck to each other. I remember a good many years ago buying a copy of the "'Bulletin'" book with the tltle of "The Golden Shanty." There I found Farell and Daley side by side. I haven't the book by me now, but I remember Farrell's "How He Died" and "The Last Bullet" were there. I forget Daley's verse. Long before that Daley had published many verses -- some in Melbourne, some in Sydney. His first contribution to a Sydney paper was, I believe, "The stucco age," which appeared in old Sydney "Punch." It began--

   This is the stucco age, the age of sham:  
   The age of things immortal and deeds that damn. 

In later years Daley and Farrell saw much of each other in Sydney. The former used to tell of a visit he paid to Farrell one night in the "Daily Telegraph" office. ''Which of us is going to write an obituary notice of the other?" asked J. F. They spun a coin. Heads, Daley wrote; tails, Far- rell. "The coin ran under the table,'' said Daley, a few days after his friend's death, "and I think Courtney found it afterwards, but it must have been heads." Daley wrote the obituary, and among other things he wrote was this: - "I remember quoting to him on an evening the saying of Abou ben Zeeyd -- 'I am a singing man of the singers -- the world's guest and a stranger.' He said he would say it about me. And I have to say it about him."'

Yet neither of them is a stranger. Both men have gone, but they live for us still in their work. When they buried Daley on Saturday they took with them to the grave a beautiful floral harp, with a laurel wreath attached, and a heart of red carnations and bonvardia -- and a streamer said."Victor -- in verse, in life, in song." This from "some lovers of Victor Daley and some admirers of Australian verse." There were many at the graveside, and though some may never have met him, he was no stranger. Rather was he "singing man of the singers -- our guest and familiar friend!"

First published in the Sunday Times (Perth), 28 January 1906

Note: Victor Daley (1858-1905) died on 5 December 1905.  John Farrell (1851-1904) died on 8 January 1904.

You can read the full text of The Golden Shanty, the anthology mentioned above, care of Austlit.

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

Reprint: Victor Daley by "The Cynic"

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It would seem that Victor Daley, known until lately to but a comparatively few literary students, has by his lamented death bred quite an army of adulators, who either knew him, ate with him, got into a state of paralytic intoxication in his company, or never knew him at all, but still pretend to have done. The grief of those who were really friends of Daley is not likely to prompt them to use their acquaintaince with the Australian poet for advertising purposes; but among the army of adulators there seems to be a sufficiency of those who desire to slobber over a dead man's verses and his past -- to claim, as it were, a part of the poet's fame for themselves and warm themselves in a ray or two of the sun which has risen over the dead man's grave.

The latest comment through the columns of a much-read weekly is that "Vic." (which contraction of the poet's Christian name discloses how intimate must the writer of the worship-wash have been with the poet!) once handed the writer of the article some of his MS.S., and he (the writer of the article, not of the poem), on perusing it, "immediately fell down and worshipped." It is probable that, as usual, the public of Australia will be pelted with such pebbles of reminiscence on Daley for months to come.

First published in the Barrier Miner, 30 January 1906.

Note: Victor Daley died on 5 December 1905.

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

   I love to live in Norwood,
      Where the flowers scent the air,
   And take a walk at sunset,
      When the evening's bright and fair.

The little chap of six, who wrote those lines, thought they were very beautiful. To-day, even though he is perhaps six times six, he still rather likes to quote them, and tell how they were inspired by his first sight of beautiful gardens around Adelaide, which stood out in wonderful contrast to the drab bush country in which he had been born.

Even though he is now known through the Empire as the author of "The Sentimental Bloke," "Doreen," "The Glugs of Gosh," "Backblock Ballads," he is still proud of his first outburst into poetic rhapsody. Of course, that small boy of six was the forerunner of the man who is how C. J. Dennis.

--Dennis's Background.--

In New York every other Saturday, a number of intellectuals meet at lunch at an exclusive club. As a sort of mental appetiser, the brilliant conversation which fills in the pauses between courses is started off by one member giving what in U.S.A. is called "his background." Translated into Australian, this would be his life history. If C. J. Dennis happened at this club, it is certain his "background" would provide much mental food, as well as many thrills for this intellectual group. There would be enough of the picturesque, adventurous and unusual in it to stamp him as a man of mark, even among these exclusives. While painting this background -- it is certain he would do it with the humour and pathos that runs through his writings -- C. J. Dennis could take them right to the small South Australian town of Auburn, where he was born, and where his father, a retired sea captain, kept a hotel. He could conjure up a boyhood, spent in an agricultural district, where horses were his chief thought and topic of conversation. He could show them the small school where he proudly occupied the position of editor of the school paper, The Weary Weekly. Even the most sensation-loving of these Americans would surely be interested in the Dennis story of an adolescence spent first in a stock and station agent's office in Adelaide, and later on the staff of The Critic. Their democratic souls would rejoice over his telling of the days when he went to Broken Hill, arriving with 1/9 in his pocket; of the adventures there while he worked as a miner, carpenter, railway construction labourer, photographer's canvasser, and insurance agent. The fact, that he nearly perished from thirst; and exhaustion while traversing the saltbush wastes between Broken Hill and Poolamacca would show just how and why C. J. Dennis knows how to sound the "human note" in his writings.  Then from this hazardous life the author of "The Sentimental Bloke" would take them back to Adelaide, where newspaper work once more caught him, right on to the days when he went to Victoria, stayed for a while in Melbourne, and then settled at Toolangi, where "The Bloke" was born.

-- The Banjo and the Lyre. --

There is no "Background" Club in Australia, and nowadays C. J. Dennis is a city dweller. He has a desk in a newspaper office, and he writes a Daily Column. Still he is willing to talk to individuals about his days at Toolangi, where he still spends his week-ends and holidays. Soon after he arrived at this spot, in the shade of the Great Dividing Range, Dennis found shelter in a sawmiller's disused hut, where he passed his time writing political and topical verse. Any interludes were covered by playing a banjo, which he fashioned out of a native blackwood, galvanized iron, the skin of a cat, and the sinews of a wallaby. Here he began ''The Sentimental Bloke." Later on it was finished in the unique study which he occupied while staying with Mr. J. G. Roberts. This study was the interior of an old omnibus, brought up from Melbourne and fitted up for Dennis. "I first got the idea for 'The Sentimental Bloke", Dennis explained recently, "from a racy fellow who came to Toolangi to train horses. He had lived hard in the vicinity of Little Bourke street, and was a great 'cobber' at the various Chow shops. This chap was very keen on a local farmer's daughter. The farmer objected to his attentions, as he was a 'crook' bloke. I remember the first time he came down to my hut. 'Gor blimme, Dennis' he said, 'why should he object. I got sisters of my own.'''

By the time "The Sentimental Bloke" was born the original one had faded from the Toolangi horizon, and it is thought he was killed at the war.

"The Sentimental Bloke" written, the next thing was to find a publisher. "I met Hal Gye in Dave Low's office at The Bulletin," related C. J., as he went over the days when success was still elusive.  "I suggested to him that if he illustrated the book we might get £50 each out of it as a subscription volume. I wrote to George Robertson of Angus & Robertson, suggesting this subscription volume, and he replied, 'Dear Sir--We are publishers, not printers and binders.'"

Eventually Dennis fixed up a contract with George Robertson. The first edition sold out in a fortnight, and up to date 30,000 copies of "The Sentimental Bloke" have been published. It has been filmed, and shown on the screen throughout Australia, Great Britain and America, and before the end of the year a dramatic version will be given on the Australian stage.

-- A Soft Spot for Glugs.--  

Like many other writers, C. J. Dennis has a great love of his less successful work. "I always think 'The Glugs of Gosh' is the best thing I have written," he said, as he talked of things he liked and disliked. Needless to say, among the things he liked were the freedom of the bush, the big trees at Toolangi. He confessed to a catholic taste as far as books written by others were concerned. In his youth he spent his first two weeks salary on two volumes of Dickens. He lost one job because his superiors did not appreciate his idea of reading the works of Rider Haggard in office hours. In his spare moments to-day Dennis likes to delve into the works of Masefield, Wells, Max Beerbohm, and James Stephens.  

Probably, because be still has much of the boy in his nature, C. J. Dennis loves and understands youth to an uncanny degree. Just how deep and real this understanding is was shown in "A Book for Kids," for which he also did the amusing illustrations. Many mothers who have crooned lullabies over their babies' cots are still at a loss to know how a mere man could have had enough 'inside information' to have written "The Lullaby," which comes near the end of this book.

First published in The Home, 1 December 1922; and later in The Register, 22 December 1922.

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

Reprint: Amusements: "The Sentimental Bloke"

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Clever, profoundly humorous, and at times touching the heart with its directness of appeal to human sympathies the stage version of C J. Dennis's remarkable book is well worthy of its producers. "Truly Australian" must be the verdict upon this play, and certainly it is truly humorous. He would be a poor creature, indeed, who could find nothing laughable

in "The Sentimental Bloke." Last evening saw an even larger audience greeting the production with delight, and salvos of applause greeted some of the sallies. At the close of the performance, the actors received an ovation. The play is well staged, and acted in a manner becoming the firm of Messrs. E. J. & Dan Carroll. As the 'bloke,' Walter Cornock shows remarkable understanding, and appreciation of the likeable hero. His part is a most clever character study. Tal Ordell gives just the right conception of the off-handed awkward Ginger Mick, who is, nevertheless, so true a pal. Miss Eileen Alexander is Doreen, and she has a winsome way, which C. J. Dennis must have perceived in his creation. Excellent work is done in support, and the whole goes to make one of the most laughable and appealing comedies seen in Adelaide for years. The boxplans for the remaining four nights and the matinee are at Allan's. Day sales will be effected at the theatre office from 10 a.m. 

First published in The Register, 28 July 1923.

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

Reprint: A Poet's Mother - Louisa Lawson

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The Sydney Bulletin contains an interesting interview with Mrs Lawson, mother of the poet Henry Lawson. Her father she stated is still alive "a good old Kentish yeoman - a big, strong, handsome man." Her mother died the other day. The following interesting sketch is a prelude to the interview: "Many gifted men have had remarkable mothers, and Henry Lawson's mother, Mrs. Peter Larsen (better known as Louisa Lawson), is in many ways a remarkable woman. Born at Guntawang, near Mudgee, N.S.W., she has suffered all her life from that craving for knowledge and culture which one sees in so many bush girls - often suppressed in deference to their not-understanding men-folk, sometimes fighting hopelessly against the round of trivialities in which custom circumscribes a woman, rarely succeeding to reach an enlightened plane of thought or performance. Louisa Lawson's mother burnt her books; her husband, a clever, capable man, frowned down her impulse to imaginative work; friends and relatives looked askance at her "queer ways." The energy of a magnificent physical constitution enabled her to struggle on. She read, and wrote, and occasionally talked. When she came to Sydney a dozen years ago, a poor little wooden cross marked the grave of poet Kendall in Waverley cemetery. Maybe the sentiment was a foolish one, for Kendall's monument is in his work, but Mrs Lawson initiated a movement which replaced the shabby little cross with a handsome monument. Then she started "The Dawn, a journal for the household, edited, printed, and published by women." The paper is living yet, and in its heyday spoke many brave and true words. Then she organised the first Woman's Suffrage League established in Sydney. Then she was chosen a member of the Sydney School of Arts committee, and for several years her strong sense was a force in its deliberations. Recently she has become a Government contractor - and inventor. For twenty-one years New South Wales mail-bags have been fastened with a strap, sealed by a device invented by Superintendent Davies. Mrs. Lawson took a contract for supplying these straps, and it struck her at once that the contrivance for fastening was slow and cumbrous. So it was, undoubtedly; the astonishing thing is, that in twenty-one years the concensus of male wisdom among postal officials should not have bettered it. In odd moments Mrs. Lawson thought out an improved buckle, had a model made from her description, and took it to the Post Office authorities, who instantly recognised its ingenuity and adopted it. It saves two-thirds of the time formerly needed to fasten the bags, and many hundreds of pounds annually in value of string and wax. Mrs. Lawson's portrait in another part of this issue barely does her justice. The expression is too hard. Despite all, Louisa Lawson is essentially a womanly woman, of a characteristically feminine type. Her nature is the groundwork of her son Henry's; but there is in him the additional element of restless male intensity.

First published in the Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 27 October 1896

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

Reprint: Australian Poets

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Australia is said to possess no native song birds, but she has as many poets as Pembroke College in the days of Dr. Johnson. "We were a nest of singing birds, sir," said the doctor, and Mr. Douglas Sladen, who has just published a portly volume of "Australian Poets," might say as much for the colony (Griffith and Farran). We are apt to think of Australia as a severely practical continent, full of sheep-shearers, gold-miners, mechanics, farmers, and shepherd swains very unlike him who "watched the visionary flocks, "that old-world morn in Sicily," to combine the information of Mrs. Browning and of Mr. Matthew Arnold. But Mr Sladen has discovered a century of poets, -- a cool hundred of them, -- in Australia, or in some way connected with Australia. Yet the colonists are practical people. An Australian reviewer once introduced a British bard to the notice of the antipodes with the remark that a kinsman of the singer was associated with the "celebrated Larra Merinos." Sheep first, song afterwards, is, on the whole, the motto, something like the saying attributed to Richard III, when he stabbed Henry VI before smothering the babes in the tower. Is Australia likely to become the home of the English muse, who, in England, has long been remarkable rather for the quantity than the quality of her effusions?   Whenever a country has a great poetry, critics easily prove that it must be so on account of the climate, the soil, and the character of the scenery. But it is less easy to prophesy beforehand. Australia, according to Mr. Sladen, has "one of those delightful climates conducive to rest in the open air." This has a hopeful sound. The shepherds of Theocritus usually do their minstrelsy while resting in the open air, beneath the pine tree, beside the Fountain or the Nymphs. On the other hand, England has had plenty of poets, and nobody can call the English climate delightful. In Australia "the atmosphere is dry champagne." If atmospheric champagne produces ministrelsy, this colony should rival "all   the angels singing out of heaven." But the British climate is less like dry champagne   than like the beverage known to some in our land as "heavy wet." In fact, Australian and English conditions of climate are the reverse of each other. In both countries, however, the Bard is thought of as "a poor poet of a fellow," to use the Irish expression; as "a soft headed one," to steal a phrase from the Zulus.

Mr Henry Kendall is regarded as quite the greatest Australitn poet, especially if we do not reckon Adam Lindsay Gordon, who was of English (or Scotch) birth. We are informed, however, that "Henry Kendall, apart from his genius for wutiug lyrical verse, was what the Scotch call a 'feckless' person." Poets often are. Mr. Kendall was accustomed to weep like anything when he read his own verses aloud. If conscious of this weakness (which he used to exhibit in the office of the Sydney Punch), Mr Kendall would have done wisely in abstaining from elocution. His extraction gave promise of extreme sensibility. He was a twin, and his mother was "a lady of lush extraction named Melinda M'Nalty," who married Kendall père on one day's acquaintance. Mr. Henry Kendall began his career, like Sir Walter Scott, in a lawyer's office. But Sir Walter's chief was not a poet, and Mr Kendall's was. A lawyer and a lawyer's clerk, both of them poets, could hardly be prosperous or the cause of prosperity in others. His life was, not unnaturally, one of struggle and sorrow, for he was a most sensitive and unpractical man, with no gift but that of minstrelsy. His poems, it seems, are now household words in the land of his birth. It is not easy for a distant critic to estimate their value. For example, take this one brick from the building--

   Softer than seasons of sleep;
      Dearer than life at its best.
   Give her a ballad to keep,
      Wove of the passionate West.
   Give it and say of the hours--
      "Haunted and hallowed of thee,
   Flower-like woman of flowers,
      What shall the end of them be?"

What, indeed! But surely we may say that, whatever the poet's meaning, his manner is a manner learned from Mr. Swinburne. Indeed, Mr. Swinburne has been the bane of antipodean poets. Their lines are often the very false gallop of verse, for who can keep pace and stride with the Swinburnian anapaests? Even Gordon, who was a poet in his way, and, as it were a Border ballad minstrel born out of due time -- even Adam Gordon was lost "in a false following" of Mr. Swinburne. Lord Tennyson and Mr. Browning the Australians imitate but rarely, if at all. Mr. Bret Harte is a more frequent model. It would be very unfair to let it be thought that Mr. Kendall was always only a mocking-bird. When he wrote of Australian scenes and manners he wrote very well. His poem on the Australian months, those converse seasons, is charming, full of pictures, and music. Here again is a telling description of an Australian drought

   Where the Barwan cuts a rotten land
   Or lies unshaken like a great blind creek,
   Between hot mouldering banks, it came to this,
   All in a time of hot and thirsty sighs,
   That thirty rainless months had left the pools
   And grass as dry as ashes.

It is natural to regret Mr. Kendall, and the difficulties which beset a weak nature, a delicate talent like his, a nature and a talent unsupported by complete education and unfostered by sympathy. The Australian critic says that "no English poet has appeared since 1860 who is Kendall's superior, Rossetti and Swinburne, and Arnold and Morris are indulgently treated if, in deference to the enthusiasm of their admirers, we allow them an equal measure of poetic feeling with Henry Kendall."

This is the way in which countrymen of a new country are apt to write. Nobody can tell how much poetic feeling any one has, but it is easy to tell whether he expresses it more or less perfectly. To compare the performances of Mr. Kendall with those of Mr. Matthew Arnold is futile. The two poets are not comparable. Doubtless a danger for Australian poetry lies in this direction. The Australians must beware of patriotic over-estimates. They must beware of too great and too empty fluency. No human mind can foresee the future of the great island, whether she is to be an historic home of United Empire or a federation of friendly States, or whether she will break into as many nations as Greece had city republics. The future of her political life must more or less control the future of her poetry. With the examples of American literature before us we can hardly venture to predict for Australia a sudden apparition of great poets. The colonies of Greece, for some reason not easy to explain, were never fruitful in singers of the highest rank, despite all their advantages of scenery, climate, prosperity, and freedom. Is what occurred on that tiny scale, in a corner of Europe, to happen on the large scale of the round world ? Are the ancient lands to be the chief lands of song?   These are all quite unanswerable questions. In the meantime it is enough that the love of poetry, that patriotic spirit, that energy, ardour, and sentiment abound in Australian literature. Any day the colony may give us a successor to Lord Tennyson and Mr. Browning. We can live in hope.

Published in The Brisbane Courier, 11 January 1889

Note: this piece was published with an indication that it had first appeared in the Daily News, which seems to have been a UK paper of the time.

The anthology edited by Douglas Sladen, mentioned at the start of this piece, is probably A Century of Australian Song which was published in London in 1888.

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

The Commonwealth Government has decided to purchase for the National Library at Canberra the original manuscripts of most of Henry Kendall's poetry, now in the possession of his daughter, Miss Evelyn Kendall, of Artarmon.

There is an enormous fascination in reading poetry so well known as Kendall's in the very handwriting of the poet himself. Moreover, these particular manuscripts are very personal and revealing. Poets less modest than he have a habit of tearing up their very early drafts and leaving for posterity something so correct and neatly written that the unsophisticated believe they sat down and wrote the piece straight off, without blots and with commas and full stops complete.

These original manuscripts, left by a man who had no presumptious estimate of his work and never thought for a moment that the Government of Australia would be demanding them for its National Library, bear all his corrections, more demonstrative to the understanding and sympathetic eye of poets who come after him, and wish to see how he laboured than a whole library of very learned theses could be.

They are graced, moreover, by the annotations of his vandal young. The scribblings and the drawings he permitted his sons and daughters to make on his papers tell of a more than human patience and forbearance.

Most of the manuscripts were written about 50 years ago, but they are perfectly preserved, thanks to the care of his wife, who died about two years ago, and his family, five of whom -- Miss Evelyn Kendall, of Artarmon, Mrs John Burch, of Seacombe, England, Messrs. F. Kendall, Artarmon; A. Kendall, Artarmon, and Fred. Kendall, Chatswood -- survive.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 April 1927

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

Reprint: Fifty Years of Brunton Stephens

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Fifty years ago James Brunton Stephens, destined to become famous in later years as Queensland's greatest poet, and one of the most charming writers of official despatches and newspaper specialities that Australia has ever had, published his first book of poetry, entitled "Convict Once." Up to that time Australia had produced little creative artistic work; in fact, the same applied to the other parts of the British colonies, as they were then called. Gordon, dead a few months before "Convict Once" was published, had laid the foundation of what subsequently became a particular school of poetry; Kendall, struggling against black adversity, had written the first of his arcadian gems; "Rolf Boldrewood" was writing "The   Squatter's Dream" as a serial for the old ''Town and Country Journal"; and Marcus Clarke was completing the last chapters of "For the Term of his Natural Life" for the old "Australian Journal." A few other writers were struggling for expression, but, in the main, the work was not above mediocrity. Even the brilliant Kendall and the erratic Gordon, like Deniehy, Harpur, and other poetic pioneers, had found little encouragement for their artistic souls. Brunton Stephens, a Scotsman by birth, and educated at Edinburgh University, arrived in Queensland in the year 1866, and spent nearly six years as tutor at Tamrockum station, on the Logan River, where he wrote his famous poem, "Convict Once," and many other verses. Though "Convict Once" was his first published poem, there is hardly any doubt that it was also his greatest, because the poems of his later years never eclipsed the grandeur, the beauty, and the dramatic continuity which runs throughout the exultant, yet heart-broken, cry of the woman who was freed from a seven years' transportation, and then despairingly realised that the world for her was a lonely, homeless blank. The poem, of course, will never be so popular as his humorous and miscellaneous pieces, such as, for instance, "Marsupial Bill," which,     when published in a Christmas number of the "Queenslander," became the literary event of the year in Australia. Few poets in the English language have handled the difficulties of hexameter verse so effectively as Brunton Stephens did in "Convict Once'' but it seems a pity that, fine classical scholar as he was, he did not follow the example of some of the tragic writers of Athens and vary the heroic measures with short lyrical metres, as Tennyson did in "Maud." Had he done so "Convict Once" would have claimed its place among the really great epics of the nineteenth century, and would have been worthy even of Swinburne himself, who exercised such an influence overour Queensland poet.

The most astonishing feature about Brunton Stephens was his amazing versatilty. Whether he dipped for his inspiration into classics, into mediaeval lore, or into philosopical or political subjects, and whether he treated them in the heroic grandeur of ancient Greece, as in "Convict Once," in the beautiful lyrical sweetness of "Fayette," in the frolicsome banter of "The Godolphin Arabian," or in the exquisite humour of "Stenograms," which was such a delightful feature of the "Queenslander," to which he contributed under the name of "Allegretto," the reader is always conscious of being in the presence of a highly-cultured, keenly observant, and kind-hearted genius. Nothing could illustrate more thoroughly the   versatility of a poet who could turn from the passionate love and the fierce untamed defiance of the strong-willed woman in "Convict Once" to the circus adventures of a Barbary thoroughbred, or to the humorous subtleties of a Chinese cook.  The reader may take up a volume of Brunton Stephens' poems and be charmed in one page with lyrics as sweet as those of Longfellow, grow sympathetic in another page with epic grandeur that would not be unworthy of a place in Swin-burne, and laugh hilariously in still another with banter in the facile metre of Byron's "Don Juan." He was writing in the days of some of England's literary giants, yet his fame spread across the oceans, and in one famous gazetteer, published by a celebrated firm, the single reference to the city of Brisbane is "The home of Brunton Stephens." Could poet ask for greater fame? Unlike Kendall, allowed almost to starve until relieved by Sir Henry Parkes a couple of years before Kendall's death, Brunton Stephens had not to contend against heart-breaking disappointment and uncertainty. For years he filled a trusted and important office in the Department of the Chief Secretary, and if that did not mean liberty and affluence, at least it placed him above that pessimism which springs from hardship and poverty. On the whole, his country treated him better than George Essex Evans, the singer of a later date. Most of our poets have found inspiration at one time or another in the future destiny of Australia, but none have handled the subject with the literary skill, the artistry, the foresight, and the prophetic vision of Brunton Stephens. He does not expend his force on its delightful valleys, on its long mountain range, on its endless miles of sand, or in the beauty of some harbour scenery. Brunton Stephens touches the human aspect, realises the aspirations of the people, dips into the future "where footfalls of appointed things, reverberant of days to be, are heard in forecast echoings, like wave-beats from a viewless sea," and sings of the Australian Dominion. His forecast was written nearly thirty-five years before Federation was consummated, and was pitched in the noblest key of patriotic and prophetic fervour. The prediction has been fulfilled, and the glory is being achieved.

Among the patriotic gems must be included that beautiful contrast which was inspired by an ancient Roman coin bearing the image and superscription of the Imperial Trajan on his throne. After moralising over the vicissitudes of that "glory-tissued vision" of pictured history, the poet thunders aloud that --  

   This is the only land beneath heaven's roof
   Where never yet hath manhood bent the knee
   To man --- the one sole continent whose sod
   The foot of regnant knighthood ne'er hath trod.
  

Brunton Stephens, however, with that prevision that characterises so much of his writings, uttered a warning note, which has become very appropriate in this democratic, yet distinctly proud, age, when he went on to sing:

   Is there among us aught that justifies
   The scorn of ancient things? Can we repeal
   The union 'twixt the present and the past,
   And place ourselves as first whom God made last?

In estimating the merits of Brunton Stephens, as well as our other writers, it must not be forgotten that both verse and prose are often beaten out at white heat for the daily Press, which waits neither for polish nor final touch. Just as our wines -- admittedly the best in the world -- often suffer from want of maturity, so the efforts of our writers have suffered to a considerable extent because the authors have lacked the time in which to polish them. Brunton Stephens, despite that handicap -- the handicap of every busy man -- produced both verse and prose that touch the high-water mark of literary excellence, whilst his official documents, written at a time when charm of diction meant even more than it does to-day, are worthy of a place with those of the most cultured officials of the Colonial Office. It is just fifty years since Brunton Stephens published his first poem, yet we believe that his fame to-day is greater as an Australian poet than it was a score of years ago, and also that according as Queensland progresses into that splendid future predicted for her, so shall her people hail Brunton Stephens as the father and the master of her song. 

First published in The Queenslander, 5 February 1921

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

The subject of this essay is J. Brunton Stephens (1835-1902).

Reprint: Real-Life Rufus Dawes

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Marcus Clarke's Novel Recalled

Rufus Dawes, hero of Marcus Clarke's "Term of His Natural-Life," had his counterpart in reality. This unfortunate man (says "Historicus.", writing in "The Australian Journal" for April) was Edmund Galley, who in 1836 was accused of complicity in the murder of one, Jonathan May, near Mortonhampstead, England, nearly a year before. May had been found on the road so severely knocked about that he died without regaining consciousness. His pockets had been rifled. The authorities rounded up a number of suspects, all known criminals, but there was no evidence against any of them. Among the crowd was one Avery, a wrestler of sorts, who was kept in goal pending investigations. Later his lady friend, Elizabeth Harris, appeared at Exeter Court on a larceny charge. Hoping to gain advantage of the free pardon offered to anyone who gave information about the May affair, and also to clear Avery, this charming girl declared that she had actually been present at the murder, and that it had been committed by two young gentlemen respectively known as "Buckingham Joe" and "Dick Turpin." Their real names were Edmund Galley and Oliver. They were tried before the famous "Hanging" Judge Williams, amid an orgy of false swearing and mistaken identity. The facts were that Galley had never been near the scene of the murder, that he had actually been in Deptford when it was committed, and that he did not even know Oliver. Nevertheless, many witnesses swore to him, and, as he had no money for his defence, and was a hang-dog-looking poor wretch into the bargain, he was sentenced to death. When the sentence was pronounced, even the hardened Oliver, was sorry for his fellow prisoner, and in a speech from the dock asserted Galley's innocence, but it was useless. An inquiry was held by the Home Office, but the only result of it was that Galley's sentence was commuted to transportation for life. After several years on a convict ship, he was sent to Australia. Ironically enough the man who, it was proved, actually murdered May had been sent out here before Galley on another charge! After poor Galley had been in Australia for nearly forty years investigation proved his innocence. This must surely have been the man Clarke had in mind when he wrote his famous novel.

First published in The Camperdown Chronicle, 3 April 1937

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

Reprint: Obituary - Henry Halloran

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The death of Mr Henry Halloran, C. M.G., occurred on May 10 at his late residence, Mowbray, Ashfield. As a very old colonist, the name of Mr Halloran has long been familiar in Now South Wales, his frequent contributions to the press, and his readiness on all occasions to use his gifts for the celebration of any event of public interest having won for him a place among the poets of Australia. Mr Halloran was a native of South Africa, having been born in 1811 at Cape Town, where his father was rector of the grammar school and chaplain to the forces. After some residence in England, he came out to this colony, entering the Survey Office in 1827, and continued in the Civil Service for a period of 51 years, when he retired on a pension, having risen to the position of Principal Under-Secretary, in which he was considered to have shown remarkable administrative ability. Mr Halloran was twice married, and has left a numerous family to mourn their loss. The funeral of Mr Henry Halloran, took place on Sunday afternoon, the coffin being placed in the family vault within the burial ground attached to St John's Church, Ashfield. A large number of beautiful wreaths was sent to the late residence, of the deceased, Mowbray, Ashfield, by friends and relations, the floral offerings embracing one from the Colonial Secretary's Department. The funeral was, in accordance with the expressed wish of the deceased, of a simple character. At it there were, in addition to the widow and sons of the deceased, the Hon Sir Henry Parkes, G.C.M.G., M.L.A., Mr. A. C. Budge (Clerk to the Execu tive Council), Mr. E. W. M'Kenny (Assistant Principal Under Secretary), Mr. Harrie Wood (Under-Secretary for Mines), Mr. Thomas Lewis, Mr. John Davidson, Mr. John F. Mann, Mr. Coles, M. G. J. Cohen, Mr .Harry Budge, Mr. MacCabe (of Wollongong), Mr. George Lloyd, Mr. E. Dowling, the Rev. J. H. Craig, and a large number of other friends of the late Mr. Halloran. At St. John's a short choral service was held, and in connection with it the Rev. Dr. Corlette delivered a brief address.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 1893

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

Reprint: Chris Brennan

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Australia possesses a number of verse writers but few poets, and of her three major poets, Hugh McCrae, Christopher Brennan, and Shaw Neilson, two are almost entirely unknown to the general public. Their works have been published only in de luxe or subscription editions now long out of print, and they still await a publisher. Chris. Brennan was neglected in his lifetime; upon his death there were but few of us who stood by the graveside; to-day he is still ignored. This strange neglect has been pointed out only this week in the correspondence columns of the "Herald," and so very timely indeed comes the appreciation entitled "C. J. Brennan," by Randolph Hughes. This book deserves the most serious consideration for many reasons. Its subject is one of our greatest poets, perhaps the greatest. Its author is probably better qualified than any living person to write about Brennan, for not only is he a critic of distinction in England and France, but he also brings to his evaluation of the poet European principles of criticism, genuine scholarship, and an unusual knowledge of the French symbolism and German romanticism which were the major influences in the creation of Brennan's poetry. He, too, has known "what strains the faun's enamour'd leisure weaves." Furthermore, he was both a pupil and a friend of Brennan's. Finally, this book bears the sub-title, "An Essay in Values," and it challenges the common literary estimates held in this country in a fashion which will be found extremely provocative. Mr. Hughes hurls the critical gage in the face of Australia with a bravura somewhat flamboyant. He wears his panache in the Gascon style. But if out of the controversy which his book is sure to provoke emerges a higher conception of literature, a more absolute measure of our poets, real or soi-disant, then he will have rendered yeoman service to Australian letters. The right appreciation of Brennan may mark the turning of the tide from the shallows of verse to the deep sea of poetry with its illimitable horizons.

Mr. Hughes does not attempt to give a biography of Brennan, only "random strays" of reminiscence and "small essays in intellectual portraiture." But he gives a survey of Brennan as scholar, an interpretation of him as poet, and especially as symbolist, a study of bis poetic affiliations, essays on symbolism and romanticism, and a detailed examination of his poetry, which is partly technical, partly general, candid, yet appreciative. His estimate of Brennan as our greatest poet goes hand in hand with scathing indictments of certain Australian authors and Australian critical values. It is interesting to note here his statement that "the three best poets besides (and after) Brennan and, with him, practically the only ones worthy of any attention" - are Victor Daley, Neilson, and McCrae. Mr. Hughes' work is marked by many defects as well as great virtues. His criticism at its best is penetrating and moves on a plane far above the average literary criticism written locally. It is a pity, therefore, that it is marred at odd times by touches of bad temper. On the biographical side there are minor inaccuracies. The reduction of Brennan's verse to Greek metres is not altogether convincing. The style is not impeccable; at times there is a drop from the brilliance, subtlety, and vigour of expression down to the genteel Billingsgate of mere diatribe. The manner ls refreshing but over-dogmatic, and contains hints of pedantry. Analytically, there is a tendency to erect needless antitheses, to turn valid complementaries into cat-and-dog contradictories, as in the case of scholarly and unscholarly poets, absolute and representative poetry, major and minor poets - as if upon Parnassus the foothills were an insult to the peaks. Of Mr. Hughes' provocative sallies, some are justified, some are not, whilst others are debatable. Thus his strictures on Professor Hancock and the London "Times" for their ignorance of Australian literature and critical ineptitude are quite warranted. But to call Burns "a minor poet" and "groundling" is stuff and nonsense.

Brennan's poetry is suggestive, mystic, and supernatural, Edenic, striving towards a lost Paradise and a transcendental twilight. This penumbrous quality of Brennan's work becomes sheer obscurity; yet this "obscurity" is purposive, part of the magian method, and deepened by allusions drawn from the "rich Cipangos" of Brennan's mind. Mr. Hughes, in explaining the tenets and method of symbolism, illuminates "the dolorous incantation." Yet it remains doubtful if Brennan did not lose as much as he gained by following Mallarme into "The Forest of Night." It is true that Brennan was never a born singer like McCrae; but in "Towards the Source" and the earlier poems, especially those like "Let Us Go Down, the Long Dead Night is Done," "We Sat Entwined," and the prelude to "The Quest of Silence," the lyrical note is still pellucid, and lt might have deepened without the symbolist influence into poetry which kept the magic and the might without becoming Delphic. Was symbolism for Brennan salvation or a snare, a guide to greatness, or a fatal will-o'-the-wisp, that led him into many a "vapour from the evening marsh of sense?" Whatever the answer, his poetry at its best can speak for itself.

First published
in The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 December 1934

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: Homage to Brennan

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Sir,-There has been much wild talk and there has been much lip service about Australia's greatest poet. We think that those of our readers who were friends of Brennan in his life, and the still larger number to whom he is an honoured name, will be glad to realise that there is no call for lamentation over the prospective loss of his work.

Brennan, before his death, had the insight to make one of his dearest and loyalest friends, R. Innes Kay, his literary executor, and Mr. Kay's loyal and thorough stewardship has prevented any ill-judged, sporadic, and inaccurate publication of Brennan's work, and has prepared the public for the edition of the forthcoming Brennan omnibus. The editing of this omnibus will be in the hands of a committee, Messrs. R. Innes Kay, J. J. Quinn, and C. H. Kaeppel, with Miss Kate Egan, treasurer, and Miss K. Donovan, secretary, It will include every surviving thing that Brennan has written, with the possible exception of his lectures on the Homeric question and his compositions in German, which have now only an antiquarian interest. The omnibus would have appeared long since, but for the difficulty in securing a small portion (not more than ten per cent.) of Brennan's work that was in the hands of others. But the committee felt, and rightly, that the omnibus should be definitive.

There is another matter to which with great happiness we refer. All lovers of Brennan's work have noted the irresistible songfulness of some of his lyrics. No one has noticed it better than Mr. Horace Keats. It has been our privilege to hear his first scores of "The Wanderer" cycle. Properly to appraise them, would, we think, take a Strangways. We would only say we recall the singing fairy of "Midsummer Night's Dream," and, that hearing them, we heard the fusion of two artists -- the poet and the musician. That these gems of art will be heard in England and America it is good to know, but we may be acquitted of any parochialism if we are avowedly glad that they will be heard first in Australia -- at the forthcoming series of lectures on Brennan, all of which will conclude with selections from the Wanderer cycle, played by Mr. Keats and sung by his gifted wife, so well known by her platform name, Miss Barbara Russell.

I am, etc.,

Kathleen Donovan.

Hon. secretary, Chris Brennan Committee.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 September 1936

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

Editor's note: Editing by committee?  Sure, that will work.  Actually, I don't think the above-mentioned omnibus was ever finished.  The Verse of Christopher Brennan was published in 1960, edited by A.R. Chisholm and John Joseph Quinn, and The Prose of Christopher Brennan in 1962 from the same editors.

Reprint: The Australian Novel

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A colonist in England offered an article on Australian literature to a London editor; and-- 'There is no Australian Literature!' was the great man's response. Such is the hard saying of a writer in a London magazine, who gives the painful anecdote as a record of fact. Doubtless the story is true but was the editor's hasty verdict true? In any case, the dilemma seems awkward. The idea that this great country should not yet have established any thing worthy of being called a national literature is sad to think on; that the thing should in fact exist, but still should be unknown to a typical director of English thought, is sad also, but less vitally important. Recognition will come in time if it be duly earned. It seems only the other day that the American novelists-- not being humorists--known to British readers were but two or three in number, and now England and Australia are flooded with the fictional output of the United States. It will be long before this younger country can show such a result; indeed, any considerable output does not exist here. It will be understood that prose fiction is more particularly alluded to. A whole continent could not fail to produce volumes of ethnographical enquiry, records of scientific research-- books which could be written nowhere else, and in which the thing said greatly outweighs the mere manner of saying it; and these are received with respectful attention all over the world-- among the limited class to whom they appeal. The younger school of poets; too, have, by their freshness and vigour, found a widespread audience, and are further encouraged, and meanwhile practically sustained, by the happy fact that Australia itself reads, and buys, their work. The same cannot be said of local novelists. The demand for new fiction, enormous as it is, is well supplied by English and American writers, and readers actually prefer the imported article to the home grown. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Australian, writers, while readily publishing their poems here, will generally go to London to print their novels.

Is it a fact, then, that the imported article swamps the local product? Fortunately the most rabid of Protectionists would never advocate the shutting out of all fiction from beyond the seas, so that prentice hands in the Commonwealth might be encouraged by the absence of skilled competition. In the world of letters freetrade rules without dispute. The talent of country must find its own way to success. One may fairly enquire, in this connection, what result the literary societies of this State can show for their tentative efforts to encourage individual production. Their powerful and well-conducted union-- probably the strongest body of its kind in Australia -- invites competition each year in the art of writing an essay, a poem, and a short story. Of the verses nothing need be said; poets are not apt to write to order, and the verse would be produced--prize or no prize-- if its author felt the inspiration. The art of criticism, on the other hand, can be greatly stimulated by a little encouragement, such as is properly given to it if the essay takes the form of original thought rather than criticism, it is equally welcome. Even though the result may not be conspicuously successful in either case, there is a distinct value to the writer in the effort he has made to appraise the work of others, or to produce fresh ideas from his own mind. The case of fiction stands by itself. It is difficult to see benefit to any one whomsoever in the production of a really poor story. The author obtains none, and if his work does not give pleasure to others his labour is lost. Still, practice is necessary here as in other fields of endeavour. The art of waiting dialogue, for example, needs much practice if the beginner is to avoid triviality on the one side and an unnatural, epigrammatic brilliance on the other. In those circumstances it would be supposed that the prize winners in the Union competitions, stimulated by the one success, would persevere and improve. Is there any record of their continuing in the public view, of their rising on stepping stones of the first triumph, and making their names known as coming story writers? There seem to be practically none. Yet the world wants fiction, and is willing to pay for it.

The Australian writer, whether of novels or of short stories, appears to have a special chance open to him. Mr. Balfour pointed out, in a recent speech at Edinburgh, that the disease from which the British novel may expect to suffer is atrophy. Everything is written about-- not a topic escapes the eagle eye of the romancer. The heavens above and the earth beneath are ran- sacked for subjects, and the ocean has its special scribes. Every country and every period has been dealt with. We have stories of life civilized, semicivilized, and barbarous, natural and supernatural. Already, through paucity of material, the vein of the unknown future is being worked. Are we not rushing headlong to the time when all subjects will be exhausted, and hundreds of literary Alexanders will sigh in vain for more worlds to conquer? Well, this continent is still a comparatively unexplored literary field. Henry Kingsley used it as a background for two delightful romances, and "Rolf Boldrewood" has followed his example. Incidients of early settlement have been told in the guise of fiction by Marcus Clarke in his one great book, and -- to come nearer home-- by Mr. Simpson Newland in "Paving the Way." Just so, until recently, did American novels deal by choice with the emigrant wagon, the 'Forty-niners of California. Now the strenuous modern life of the United States finds its chroniclers everywhere. Here, as there, a new nation is waiting to be depicted -- young, strong, fond of sport and the open air, reckless in love or in speculation; and of it English and American writers perforce know nothing. Mr. Hornung alone draws heavily on a former residence here. Even Rudyard Kipling takes no advantage of his brief visit. From authors, Australian by birth or long residence, good work begins to flow. Ethel Turner's stories of childlife have a wide reputation. "Such is Life," by Tom Collins; "True Eyes and the Whirl wind," by Randolph Bedford; "Tussock Land," by A. H. Adams; "The Antipodeans," by Mayne Lindsay -- here are four books of the past 12 months which can be tried by a high standard; but two of them depict life far removed from cities, and one is half-English in its scene. There is plenty of room to find a hero in the town-bred Australian of to-day. He knows nothing of convicts, and very little of bushrangers, but very much of commercial and professional life, of the Stock Exchange, and the cricket ground. The woolshed and the wild kangaroo have their interest, but many thousands of Australians have never seen either. The discerning eye can discover, and the skilled hand may impart, a distinctive "local colour" which need have nothing whatever to do with the bush.

First published in The Register, 19 November 1904

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

Reprint: Death of Sumner Locke

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Sumner Locke, the well-known Australian novelist, passed away yesterday morning in a private hospital at Kogarah after giving birth to a son, and the event will be learned with widespread regret. Early this year, whilst rehearsing her rustic farcical comedy, "Mum Dawson, Boss," with Mr. Bert Bailey, at the Criterion Theatre, she laughingly remarked that she had but two ambltions in life -- to produce a play and to produce a son. Her heart's desire was realised with her last breath. The pathos of her unexpected end is increased by the fact that her husband, Sergeant L. Elliott, A.I.K., is at the front.

Sumner Locke was the daughter of a Church of England minister, who named her after Archbishop Sumner, and she was born in Queensland. Though slight and small of figure, her mental energy was extraordinary, so that quite early in life she made a name as a journalist, and by her success with her humorous bush story, ''Skeeter Farm." During her brief career she visited London, and on the way from the railway terminus to her lodgings read an advertisement offering a large money prize for an original story. She wrote it during the same day, sent it in, and carried off the prize! Another of her remarkable feats was the writing of a rustic American novel, "Samaritan Mary," which was accepted and published in the United States, where it enjoyed a remarkable success, before ever she had set foot in the country. The young authoress not only possessed imagination, as illustrated by the above achievement, but wrote with amazing facility, and had other novels ready for publication when she visited New York a few months ago. Finding that the Atlantic was a closed route, she relinquished her intention of revisiting London, where she had made many literary friends, and returned to Sydney last August. This brilliant woman has brothers at the front, sisters in London and Victoria, and a sister, Mrs. G. M. Burns, wife of the former M.P. for Illawarra, in Sydney.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 October 1917

Note: Sumner Locke (1881-1917); and the son mentioned above became the novelist Sumner Locke Elliot (1917-91).

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

Versatile Writer of "Rhymes From the Mines"

I never could quite understand the Australian neglect of Edward Dyson.  

Dyson was a man whose work, it would be expected, would be far more popular than that of Gordon, Kendall, Boake, Eden, or most of the old school of ballardists. And for this reason. That, whereas Gordon was much of a scholar and wrote for the lovers of horses, Kendall for the lovers of sweeter rhymes, and Boake for the harsher critics and men of the cattle country, Dyson set the scene of his rhymes in the bowels of the earth, in the mines, and among the men that worked them.

And it is because of the number of Australians who have either worked, or are working, in gold mines, and who, therefore, have snatched something of their atmosphere and their lure, that it is only natural to imagine that readers of Australian poetry would turn to Dyson.

Such, however, has not been the case, and 'Rhymes From the Mines' has become an all but forgotten book. What a pity is so!

Recently the Eastern States weeklies and other periodicals that boast a literary page made frantic endeavors to, obtain and publish all the information available on promising Australian poets. Everyone, from Barrington and Wentworth to Louis Lavater, was included in the list -- with

ONE NOTABLE EXCEPTION.

That exception was, of course, Edward Dyson. Not one of the papers mentioned the name of the Melbourne poet, who died only two or three years ago, and whose output was probably the largest of any Australian writer.

Why most of those who were included in the list should have been given precedence over Dyson it is difficult to see. The merit of his work is unquestionable, which is more than can be said for many of the honored ones.

Why is it, then, that Dyson, the rhymer from the mines and the

APOSTLE OF THE PITMEN

has been forgotten? ls it that his themes are out of date? Scarcely, for goldmining is a bigger industry today than it was when Dyson was at his top. Droving, the outback, and the unpopulated vastnesses of Boake, Gordon, and Paterson are fast fading from memory. Industry is choking the romance that was in them; and they live only in the verses of the old balladists. But goldmining shows no sign of a premature death. The men, the mines, the work and the worries in the fight for the yellow metal are as real to-day as they were the day Dyson first lifted his gifted pen. And it is only the interest in them that seems to have died. Perhaps it is that in a thing so closely connected with the grind for daily bread the men of Australia can find little romance. And even the rhymes of Dyson will not drag them from their apathy.

Dyson occupied a middle period between the present day and the

DAYS OF WHICH MARCUS CLARKE WROTE.

He spent his boyhood in the vicinity of the Ballarat and later the Bendigo rushes. He shook his "shaker" with the alluvial chasers that followed the rushes; and saw the passing of the old dryblower and the coming of the deep quartz mining. He knew this mining business as few, if any, writers have done. And even if there are among us the pedants that would cavil at the paucity of his classical allusions the fact remains that he gave us a wonderful picture of his period, as clear cut as a canvas by Longstaff.

Nor was it only in his verse that Dyson did this. His story, "The Golden Shanty," still stands as a classic of goldfields color and humor; and what is more it has the merit of a true and sound basis that was conceived from actual happenings in the Castlemaine district.

Dyson left the mines when he was still a comparatively young man and found a job in a factory. That remarkable little collection of stories, "Fact'ry Hands," was the outcome of his change, and it was this book that led him to the "Bulletin" and his success as a freelance journalist.

How many freelance men could boast that they had made a decent living at the game? Very, very few. But Dyson could. His paragraphs were gems of wit humor, and sarcasm.

Twelve hours a day he worked writing everything in longhand (until the day of his death he scorned a type-writer) and his industry was tremendous.

He would often start the day with a political quip. As soon as he finished he would probably get to work on a ballad, follow with a few humorous pars., and then, if the time remained, run off a short story. Australia has yet to produce a writer whose versatility could rival Dyson's.

Ideas for cartoons, a few joke blocks, personalities, articles on drama or sport, all came within the scope of his ability, and it is little wonder that he became the most popular paragraphist of his day.

WORK WAS NOT MARRED.

And yet, strangely enough, his diversity of subject and the rush with which his work was executed did not cause it to suffer. Every line that left his desk was worthy of the name of Dyson, and his meanest paragraph showed the same finish as a completed story.

Why Dyson should be slipping into oblivion is incomprehensible. Perhaps, with the passing of these crazy years of hustle and bustle, men may have more time to think and the poet will receive his true estimate.

Meantime, apparently, his name must live only in the brilliant work performed by his younger brother, Will Dyson, for whom the dead poet did so much.

First published in The Sunday Times (Perth), 17 May 1936

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

Reprint: S.A. Poets and Their Verse by L. H. Rye

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A search extending over the past eight years has revealed more than 120 volumes of verse written by 74 different South Australians.

Five of them -- Alfred T. Chandler, Adam Lindsay Gordon, John Shaw Neilson, Charles Henry Souter, and Agnes L. Storrie -- have done such good work that selections from their verse have been included in the "Oxford Book of Australian Verse."

Included among the others are Henry Arthur, who has published nine volumes (many of which received a flattering reception from the British press); Leon Gellert, who stands at the head of Australia's soldier poets, and deserves a place in any Australian anthology, yet has been unaccountably overlooked; Ruth M. Hawker, whose work deserves to be much better known than it is; and Charles Rischbieth Jury, who is likely to attain a high place in English literature, if his future work fulfils the promise shown in that already published.

Five Great Poems

Only five South Australian poems can with any degree of certainty be said to be worthy to rank with the best or their kind in English literature. Jury's long dramatic poem. "Love and the Virgins," is written in blank verse of high poetic worth that reminds us of the "Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Comus," and it compares very favorably with the exquisite classical plays of Bridges. Gordon's "Rhyme of Joyous Garde" is undoubtedly finer than anything of its kind in Tennyson, and is the only work which shows Gordon to have had what Carlyle considers the most necessary attribute of genius -- "the infinite capacity for taking pains." Neilson's "Petticoat Green" approaches more nearly than any other poem written in Australia to Shelley's ideal of "all high poetry" -- "Veil after veil may be withdrawn, and the inmost naked beauty of the meaning never exposed." Arthur's "Sunflower" is a truly delightful lyric reminiscent of Blake in its sheer simplicity; and Ruth Hawker's "Death the Drover," is a hauntingly melodious lyric woven around a country metaphor applied in a manner that suggests De La Mare's "Nod."

Wide Range Of Subjects

Occasional verse receives a disproportionately large share of attention, and it is needless to say that it constitutes the bulk of ephemeral verse of a very low order. The subjects range from events of world interest, such as are described in Robert Caldwell's "Celestial Glow" (on the explosion of Krakatoa), to events of local importance, like those dealt with by "D.C." in "A Retrospect and a Fore cast" (in which the political history of the day is reviewed). Indeed, the history of the State, including the vagaries of its climate, can be traced with reasonable accuracy in the occasional verse published; the reader, however, cannot but feel that most of it had been much better expressed in prose.

When we turn to the verse of greater worth, we find that the narrative form predominates. The drama has a large number of followers, most of whom, fortunately, have left only fragments; Jury is the only writer to use it with success, and his "Love and the Virgins" is of value not so much for its dramatic as for its lyrical qualities. But it is in the ballad that South Australian writers excel and can lay claim to rank with England's best. Gordon is unsurpassed in the longer ballad; while Souter and Neilson excel in the shorter ballad, such as "Irish Lords'" and "Julie Callaway."

The Poet As Philosopher

No poet can be truly great in every line of a long poem; and the lesser poets achieve greatness only in isolated fragments of their work. This is especially true of the better South Australian writers. Every poet is a thinker and strives to work out for himself, in a more or less definite form, a philosophy of life. The "purple patches" in his work are fragments of his philosophy. South Australian verse is unusually fertile in this fragmentary philosophy; in fact, this and the prevalence of the ballad form are its predominant qualities.

No writer has achieved anything as definite and complete as some of the English poets like Shelley and Browning have: but then no writer has been able to devote his entire life to literature as the greater Englishmen have. Only one South Australian has met with any considerable financial success from the publication of his verse: C. J. Dennis caught the popular fancy with "sentimental"' verse during the war; but it is noteworthy that his best work is contained in the "Backblock Ballads," which is by no means his most popular volume. Gordon's verse, which must have made comparatively large sums of money since his death, brought him only additional financial obligations during his lifetime. Most of the earlier writers published by private subscription; and since Gordon's death writers have seen the necessity of depending on other sources for their living.

Philosophy Of Life

However much Gordon may excel his fellow-countrymen in fame, he lags far behind some of them, especially Cocks, Arthur and Ruth Hawker, in the development of a philosophy of life. Baffled by the incomprehensibility of the riddle of death, Gordon occasionally sees the light and counsels us to "question not" but to concentrate on helping others and bearing with fortitude our own burdens. This is the pinnacle of Gordon's philosophy of life. Shaw Neilson, too, has little philosophy to give us: he is a singer who feels rather than knows, and for him the joy of living and loving is sufficient. Jury is as yet content to be a singer and does not pretend to any great knowledge of life's mysteries. Gellert can think only of the horrors of war: his sensitive imagination sees nothing but blood -- "The scythe of Time runs red" -- and his work contains no satisfactory solution of the problem war has presented to him. Of all those who wrote on religion, Nicholas J. Cocks alone can claim to have produced real poetry; he accepts the Christian philosophy of life. Arthur worships beauty, and arrives at the same fundamental belief that Keats evolved -- that Beauty and Truth are identical and, as the "Ode to a Nightingale" shows, eternal. Ruth Hawker's ideas are gradually crystallised until finally she has a glimpse of that "eternal reality" which for Shelley and Swinburne was the only reality in a world of change and decay. But it is only a glimpse.

Essentials Of Great Poetry

Although South Australian verse contains at least the chief elements of great poetry, in not one instance are they fused into a single poem, or even into the works of any one author. The three chief essentials of great poetry are melody, perfect harmony between thought and rhythm, and the evolution of a more or less complete philosophy of life. By the latter is meant the power to give to others some sense of compensation for life's sorrows, the belief in the eternal reality as an anchor in life's sea of transience.

Melody there is. Gordon achieves it often, usually when he is most like Swinburne. Harmony there is, also: Shaw Neilson and Jury are masters in that, particularly in the entrancing lightness of "Love's Coming" and in the solemn stateliness of the blank verse in parts of "Love and the Virgins." But if, as most of our writers tell us, all things of earth are evanescent, and death is inevitable, we may ask with Neilson, "What of the gates in the distant sky that the elder seers have seen?" Gordon dare not look behind the veil: Neilson "can only dream in a heavy way as a peasant can;" Jury says, "More wisely would I muse; but more I know not." The minor writers alone are sure of themselves; but, with the exception of Ruth Hawker, none has arrived at a satisfying ultimate solution with any degree of conviction. In this respect she towers above all others; but she has written so little of outstanding merit that she cannot claim to be the greatest even of South Australian poets.

In spite of many defects, however, and although South Australia has produced no poet who can, in the sum of his works, rank even with England's second-rate poets, the fact remains that in the brief century of the State's history much has been achieved and a deal of good verse has been written which is worthy to survive.

First published in The Advertiser, 10 March 1934

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

Reprint: When a Poet Edited a Sydney Daily by Claude McKay

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A poet as editor of a daily newspaper is unlikely in the present day. But Sydney once had one, none other than A. B. Paterson, whose galloping rhymes, "The Man From Snowy River," "The Geebung Polo Club" and others, won him immense popularity. The atmosphere of the newspaper Paterson edited is conveyed in this sketch by one who breathed it. The paper was the old "Evening News," then published on the site of the State Theatre of to-day.

Banjo Paterson was my first Sydney editor on the "Evening News," for many years now in the newspaper cemetery,

His sanctum was "an office mean and dingy," a roller-top desk taking up most of the space in it. The pigeon holes were stuffed with all manner of discarded junk and the writing surface of the desk littered high with old proof sheets, out-of-date newspapers, opened and unopened, leaving him little elbow room at his near-submerged writing blotter pad.

He had an habitual look of bewilderment and how he got out that galley was indeed the inexplicable. For anyone less attuned to what the tempo of evening journalism could be would have taken some finding.

If the paper had waited for "Banjo" it would have had to be an annual. However, in a leisurely sort of way the sub-editor persuaded three, sometimes four, editions to reach the streets each day.

It was generally a one-story title and that was turned out by Tom Spencer, the star reporter who unfailingly was assigned to the day's biggest news item. (Tom was the son of the Spencer who wrote "How MacDougall Topped the Score"').  

Paterson hated being left to himself. Whoever went into his room was welcomed like a long-lost brother. He would lean back comfortably in his chair as much as to say that time was no object and settle himself down for a yarn. If a man from outback came in with a cattle dog it wasn't long before the dog sensing the situation curled itself up and was asleep.

The general manager of the "Evening News" was Walter Jeffrey (?) who passed his days reading Conrad and writing himself of the sea. He had sailed before the mast and tous looked as though he would be very happy with a pot of paint, a brush and some chalking smartening up a schooner.

At peak hours of the paper he and Paterson would be together exchanging confidences of far horizons, Paterson, "the sunlit plains extended" and Jeffrey palm-fringed islands of the South Seas.

A social historian would have delighted in the atmosphere of the "Evening News" in those first few years that opened this century. The split-second speed of afternoon editors of today was unknown in the place. The paper had a comfortable supremacy in evening sales and advertising. "The Star" was far more pronouncedly moribund. There wasn't a twinkle in it.

The "News" had three leaders who wrote little essays on subjects remote from daily life and they were all them out of the office by 10 a.m.

They were a hangover from the Victorian era. Peace and humility were the established order. Hurry was indecent. Writers, such as they were, were there. Literary hacks had the shabbiness of Grubb Street and the parsimonious "Evening News" was their last refuge.

Worse days we were told had been before. The legend of Alfred Bennett, an earlier proprietor, hung heavily over the office.

But a story of an unbroken spirit of his day sustained us even in our blackest moods. It was related of the time when the building that housed the paper was being erected. Alfred Bennett was regarding the facade from across the street. He had left a niche for some symbolic figure of the power of the Press to embellish it. Pondering what it should be, he espied one of his down-at-heel reporters, whom he gruffly hailed.

"I was thinking of Caxton and his Press," he said after curtly explaining his probIem. "Perhaps some suitable coat of arms would be better. What are your views?"

"A coat of arms, I should suggest, sir," said Meyers.

"Indeed?"

"Yes, sir, I think the Earl of Warwick's arms would be most appropriate."

The Earl of Warwick's arms are The Bear with the Ragged Staff.  

"Banjo" Paterson introduced a cartoonist to the "Evening News" in Lionel Lindsay (now Sir Lionel). There were thus two cartoonists of the daily Press, the other Hal Eyre, of the old "Daily Telegraph," father of the present cartoonist of "The Sydney Morning Herald."  

Lindsay ran an amusing series of drawings captioned, "Places I have never visited."  Rome, according to him, had its seven hills and on each he   posted a barrel organ grinder with his monkey. This nearly caused an international incident. Dattillo Rubbo, a fierce artist and Garibaldian, challenged Lionel to a duel. His letter offering the choice of weapons to Lionel was a masterpiece of inflamed patriotism.  

Nothing happened or occurred in the columns of the "Evening News"; everything "transpired." You could never, however you tried, or twisted syntax, avoid it. The sub-editor would have his way. At long last I had "transpire" put on the index expurgatorius. It came about by my reading a short story by Morley Roberts in which a character appeared, "like a third-rate reporter transpiring at every pore." I gave it to the sub-editor to read.

The sub-editor was a gourmand. Every banquet to which a reporter was called in Sydney he attended. No ticket for one ever got past him. He got rounder and ruddier until his doctor warned him off the perils of the table and put him on a strict diet.

He sadly told "Banjo" of the blow.

"I am not to cat cabbage, Barty," he wailed. "I'm fond of cabbage, dished up and cut across, with pepper and butter. And I'm fond of mashed potatoes, with plenty of pepper and butter. I'm ordered to have neither. I think," he added reflecting on this fate, "I can give up cabbage, Barty, but I can't, I can't (Caruso sob), I can't give up mashed potatoes!"

Paterson, his long weather beaten face lighting with that attractive, humorous smile of his, used to repeat poor W. Leighton-Bailey's tale of woe.

We all had a great affection for "Banjo." And "linesmen," of whom I was one, were glad he began life as a lawyer. For he marked our contributions with a professional fee -- a paragraph, 3/4; a short cross- head, 6/8; half a column, half a guinea; a column, a guinea.

Still, as an editor, it would occur to me how true he must have thought it that, "a bush man's life has pleasures that the townsman never knows."

First published in The Sunday Herald, 9 November 1952

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

Reprint: A Genius: Henry Handel Richardson by "I. L."

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London cables of this week seem to indicate that a great Australian writer, long neglected in her own country, may at length come to be regarded here at her true value. In no Australian authors' week has her praise been sung; only a handful of us have read her books; it is safe to say that nine out of ten reading Australians have not till now even heard her name. But, just an a comparatively neglected English writer has leapt into the ranks of the best sellers as the result of recent praise by Mr. Baldwin, so, let us hope, our fellow countrywoman may be made an Australian best seller by the cabled praise of the English critics. Not that English critics now praise her for the first time, but that this is the first occasion on which reverberations have reached this side of the world, through so popular a medium as the daily Press. The cables repeat tributes to her last book, "Ultima Thule," which must gladden those who have read and recommended and urged the recognition of her earlier work.

The "Observer" critic, Gerald Gould, says, "If our age has produced a masterpiece at all this is a masterpiece. It is a work of genius, strong and triumphant." Sylvia Lynd, herself a writer of great merit, says: "I have come on nothing like this in years of book reviewing." The cabled news, as published in a daily paper, continues. "Ultima Thule" is the last volume of a trilogy, of which the first two volumes were "Maurice Guest," and "The Ordeal of Richardson Compton." This last is quite erroneous. "Ultima Thule" does complete a trilogy, of which the general title is "The Fortunes of Richard Mahony." The first volume was published in 1917, and bears the subtitle, "Australia Felix." The second appeared in 1925, and is called "The Way Home." The first volume is concerned with life on the Ballarat gold diggings in the eighteen-fifties, the second with life in Melbourne and in England during the 'sixties and 'seventies. "Ultima Thule" she had hoped to publish early last year - - it has been delayed till the beginning of this. "Maurice Guest" is the title of one of her books -- the other title cabled must be due to mutilation of messages.

FIRST BOOK.

Her first book, "The Getting of Wisdom," also referred to in the cables, is a story of school life in Melbourne, and was published in London in 1908. Of this book, Gerald Gould, the critic of the "Observer" says in his book, "The English Novel of To-day": "The best of all contemporary school stories, is, I think, "The Getting of Wisdom," by Henry Handel Richardson, a woman."

In 1912 she published "Maurice Guest," a story of musical students in Leipzig. Gould says of it in the same volume that it is "a book unique in kind and yet of great influence. Nobody ever has succeeded, and nobody ever will succeed, in writing another book at all like it, and I do not know that it ever attained much general fame, but it has been widely read among writers, and the patient thoroughness of its technique has cer-tainly served for an example and a standard. The most striking thing about it is its combination of traditional objectivity in treatment -- what one may call its old masterlines, with modernity of theme." And there have been other writers and critics who have given similar testimony. In 1925 "Maurice Guest" was re-issued, with a preface by Hugh Wal-pole, who says of it: "This memorable novel is one of those few whose influence has been persistently important and fruitful. With the certain exception of the works of Mr. E. M. Forster and the possible exception of Miss Dorothy Richardson's 'Miriam,' there has been no work by a modern English novelist that has so deeply and persistently influenced the writing of the younger generation. It is one of the most truthful novels that has ever [...] who are so alive that once you have met them they never leave you again."  

Continental reviewers have added their praise, and several years ago Carl Van Vechten, the American writer, declared: "Henry Handel Richardson is the one indubitable literary genius that Australia has produced."

To return to the trilogy, which to Australians is probably the most important, it may suffer temporarily from the fact that the first volume has long been out of print. Probably the only place where it can be read in Sydney is the Mitchell Library, where copies of all her books may be found. But, if Australians have any pride at all in the achievement of a fellow-Australian, surely there will go forth such a demand from Australia that Messrs Heinemann will be compelled to reprint that first volume, or better still, perhaps, to publish all three in one of those omnibus volumes that are becoming so popular. Australians have bought freely John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga. Can we not hope that they would also buy this Australian saga?

FINDING THE AUTHOR.

The writer of this article, who had long been interested in these books, determined, when visiting England in 1927, to find out, if possible the name and something of the history of Henry Handel Richardson, for, strange as it may seem, nothing was known beyond the fact that that name was a pen-name, that the writer was a woman, and that, from the evidence of her books, she must have lived in Victoria.

An introduction to Mr. C. S. Evans, the manager of Heinemann's, resulted in a pro-mise to forward a letter to her. He could not tell her name, he said -- she had asked her publishers not to disclose it. All that was learned was that she is the wife of a very well-known man. The letter was duly written and forwarded, and a very courteous reply was received, which led to a second letter and second reply. But still she did not tell her name, although she told sufficient about it and her early life in Victoria to make it possible, perhaps, to identify her if one had cared to pursue the matter. But the only thing to do then seemed to be to respect her wish. She said that she was born in Melbourne, went to school there, and left at about the age of eighteen to study music at the Leipzig Conservatorium, as at that time it was a matter of uncertainty whether she would not take up music as a profession.  

She has been back to Australia only on occasional visits, but adds that she still looks upon herself as an Australian, and that it is consequently very gratifying to her to read that the writer had said to her of the two volumes of the Fortunes of Richard Mahony and to know that they are appreciated in her native country. She says further: "But I should like to ask you and other Australian readers to remember that the tone of these works, and the moods they reflect, are not my own personal views and feelings, but those of the early settlors and colonists who still lived, as it were, with a foot in each country, the old and the new." I said earlier that she did not tell her name-this is hardly correct, as she did say that Richardson is her maiden name-it is her present name and identity, only that she evidently wishes to withhold. She also said that she hoped her publishers would reissue the first volume of Richard Mahony when the third one appeared, and this hope we in Australia may, if we will, help to make fruitful.

We have neglected her work in the past. Whether booksellers or public are to blame, or both, it is unprofitable now to discuss, but each must help the other if the reproach is to be removed. A writer in the "Bulletin" several months ago, in a fine notice of Maurice Guest, said that it would probably depend on the reception here of her forthcoming book whether she continued to write of her native land. Happily that is not so -- the fact that she steadfastly refuses to reveal her identity shows that she writes not for recogniton, but because she must. To her and to her ultimate reputation our present appreciation or indifference may matter little - it is we who are on trial, not she. But the attitude of Australians to this gifted child of Australia may mean a great deal in the encouragement or discouragement of young Australian writers here for whose future she expressed great hope. 

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 February 1929

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

Note: one line in this article was duplicated in the version that appeared in the original paper.  I have removed it and replaced it with "[...]".

Reprint: Good Stories of Artists and Authors

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"I Recall: Collections and Recollections," by R.H. Croll. (Robertson & Mullens, Melbourne).

This bright book by a Victorian strongly resembles another, one of the best of its kind, lately produced in London by the popular Sir Edward Marsh, a valued official who yet found time to know everybody of note in the artistic or literary world. A more complete panorama of Melbourne life, in those aspects, during the past half century, than that presented by "I Recall." can hardly be imagined.

Mr. Croll, a youth from Stawell, was early into the Public Library of Melbourne. But the public positions that he has filled take up half a page of the book. As a sample, he was president of the Anthropological Society and of the Field Naturalists' Club, Registrar of the Council of Public Education, and secretary of the Australian Academy of Art, while the list of journals for which he has at some time written runs into about six dozen!

The author seems to know little of Adelaide; but he has been really friendly with men that we know well. In fact, one of his quaintest stories was located by C. J. Dennis in this city. A new reporter with picturesque ideas, was sent to deal with atragedy, and his narrative began thus- "Mind the blood and brains," said the courteous constable, as he opened the door to our representative.

But perhaps the best literary story is of the incredible verse which appeared in Williamson's book of poems, "Purple and Gold." Archibald Strong had objected to one of lines, and pleasantly suggested six variations, The printer (in London) put in the whole lot as a complete new verse:--

Rainbows made by spring of leaves,
Rainbows touched by Spring to leaves,
Woven irises of leaves,
Made by Spring of rainbow leaves,
Consecrated rainbow leaves,
Vernal iridescent leaves.

   rhcroll_dlow.jpg


It has been called "the only piece of true Celtic mysticism written by an Australian."'

As to M. J. MacNally, now an Adelaide resident, there are many quaint stories of his early and more riotous days.

Mr. Croll has been called "the only man in Australia who "writes by Act of Parliament." The fact is that his presswork and verse would have infringed regulations when he was a public servant, and an Order-in-Council, duly gazetted, authorised his freelance works.

But he is thankful that he did not take up journalism. "Much brilliant and capable writing is printed every day: yet, of its brilliant and capable producers, it would be safe to say that not one in ten ever comes into the literary field with a volume."' he says. Whereas this public servant (now retired) has written books of travel and verse, and valuable biographies of Shirlow, Tom Roberts, and Sturgess. He also helped to edit an Australasian Anthology.

First published in The Advertiser, 23 September 1939

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

Note: the original review was accompanied by the David Low caricature of R. H.Croll, as reprinted here.

The mother of Henry Lawson had embarked upon her career as a social reformer as early as 1883, when she arrived in Sydney with her four children, Henry, Charles, Peter, and Gertrude. She made her first appearance in the public eye when she appealed for funds for the purpose of erecting a memorial pedestal to surmount the last resting-place of the poet, Henry Kendall.

When Mrs Lawson and her four children left their selection at Eurunderee, near Mudgee (New South Wales) to live in Sydney, her husband, Peter Larsen, remained in the country. He at that period, was a small contractor, and worked at various centres. He died at Mount Victoria (New South Wales) at the age of 55 years, on December 31, 1888, and was buried in the historic Mount York Cemetery, down the old Cox Pass-road.

Louisa was the second daughter in a family of ten girls and two boys. She was born at Guntawang Station, near Gulgong (New South Wales) on February 17, 1848. Her father, Henry Albury, hailed from Kent, in England, and her mother, Harriet Winn, was a Devonshire-born girl. The founder of the Alburys in Australia was John Albury, who, with his wife, Ann Albury (nee Ann Ralph) and a family of English-born children, arrived in New South Wales by the Woodbridge in 1838. Ann Albury is Henry Lawson's alleged gypsy ancestress. That she never possessed a drop of gypsy blood is stated by present-day members of the Lawson family. The Alburys settled on a farm at Luddenham (New South Wales), and later removed to the vicinity of Winbourne, the George Cox property at Mulgoa (New South Wales). Here it was that the son, Henry Albury, became acquainted with Harriet Winn, a needlewoman who was employed at Winbourne. Those who have read the two diverting and interesting lengthy chapters of Henry Lawson's "Grandfather's Courtship" will obtain a humorous picture of the foibles of Henry's great aunts and uncles, and will capture some of the spirit of the Nepean pioneers.

POETIC AND PSYCHIC INTERESTS.


Henry Albury and Harriet Winn were married by the Rev. T. C. Makinson, at St. Thomas's Church, Mulgoa, on February 4, 1845. The pioneer Alburys, after some of their numerous family, including Henry, had married and acquired farms of their own, went to live, firstly with one of their daughters, Mrs. Mercy Sheather, at Bolwarra, near West Maitland, New South Wales and finally settled at Cundletown, on the Manning River, New South Wales. Mrs Ann Albury died at Oxley Island, New South Wales, on October 28, 1860, aged 66 years; her husband John passed away at the same farm on June 18, 1868, aged 75 years. Both are buried in the Methodist portion of the Dawson cemtery at Cundletown. Henry Albury and Harriet Winn soon after their marriage accompanied pastoralist George Henry Cox over the Blue Mountains, Albury being employed by Mr Cox as a teamster. The second daughter of the marriage, who was called Louisa, as a girl showed traits of an independent nature coupled with an intense love of the bush. Those interested will get an insight into this period of the life of Henry Lawson's mother by reading her poems "Sunset," 'The Squatter's Wife," and "A Dream."  

In later years, Mrs. Louisa Lawson was keenly interested in all matters pertaining to the psychic and its unravelling, and sought inspiration from what she called the Higher Source. I am inclined to classify her as a Christian Spiritualist from the purely theological point of view.

Louisa Albury was married to Peter Larsen, a Norwegian sailor, at the Methodist parsonage, Mudgee, when but 18 years of age, on July 7, 1866, the officiating minister being the Rev. J. G. Turner. Peter Larsen took his girl-wife with him to the Weddin Goldfield at Grenfell, New South Wales, almost immediately after the union. It was there that their famous son Henry Lawson (Anglicised from Larsen) was born on June 17, 1867.

Although I knew her well in the 'nineties and in the early part of the century, I also came into closer contact with her during the twilight of her career. I, and some literary friends, used to visit her at the "little stone cottage" at Tempe, a suburb of Sydney, where she spent the last years of her life, residing there alone with her son, Charles. The "little stone cottage" was purchased by Mrs. Lawson in 1896, and her printing press removed thither. It was there that at least two of Mrs. Lawson's books of verse were published, and it was there, also, that Henry Lawson's first book of verse was printed in 1896.

FOUNDING OF "THE DAWN."

In order to give wider publicity to her aims, she founded "The Dawn" in May, 1888, and this sparkling little journal was issued regularly until 1903. Mrs. Lawson was no armchair propagandist. She knew from personal investigations the conditions under which women worked in the factories, and had also made a close study of housing and hygienic problems.

Apart from her ability as a platform speaker she could wield an able pen. Besides "The Lonely Crossing," she published a small booklet, "Dert and Do," the title being a play on the names of her daughter Gertrude and Joe Falconer, who was the original of Henry Lawson's "Joe Wilson and His Mates." But those interested in the life story of Mrs. Louisa Lawson will find her best work in the volumes of "The Dawn"--and how she loved those volumes as her friends can testify--the only known set in existence being in the Mitchell Library, Sydney. This was Mrs. Lawson's own personal set.

She died on August 12, 1920, at the age of 72 years, and is buried with her father and mother in the family grave in the old portion of the Church of England section at Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney. Her death only occurred some two years previously to that of her illustrious son.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 March 1932

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

Reprint: Pioneers of the Pen: Barcroft Boake by John K. Ewers

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That the memory of Barcroft Henry Boake is kept alive by the output of little over a year's work is in itself a testimony to the man and to his verses.  What might have come from his pen had not fate intervened at the early age of twenty-six, it is difficult to say, but in the volume entitled 'Where the Dead Men Lie' (Angus and Robertson, Sydney) are thirty-one poems that have secured for their author an assured place in the annals of Australian literature.

Barcroft Boake was born at Balmain, Sydney, on March 26, 1866. His mother was the daughter of an Adelaide accountant. Barcroft Boake, sen., came from Ireland at the age of twenty and early became interested in photography, which served him throughout his lifetime as a profitable means of livelihood. When the boy, 'Bartie,' as he was called, was nine years old, an intimate friend of the family Mr Allen Hughap, took a great fancy to the lad and persuaded his parents to allow Barcroft to accompany him to Noumea, New Caledonia. Here the boy stayed for two years, learning a fair smattering of French during that time.

In 1879 Mrs. Boake died, leaving behind her nine children. Barcroft wrote to his friend Hughap at the time: "Mamma has been taken away, leaving a little baby boy behind. What an exchange!" Still life went smoothly enough for the young poet. His father's photographic business was prospering and he was in a position to give his son a good general education. He went to school until he was seventeen, spending a few months at the Sydney Grammar School and five years under a private tutor. At that time we are told "he displayed no unusual ability; was a quiet reserved boy, yet by no means mopish; fond of reading: noticeably honorable, generous and constant in his affections."

He then entered the office of a Sydney land surveyor, and for twelve months was a temporary draughtsman in the Survey Office. In July, 1886, he secured the position of field assistant to Mr. E. Commins, a surveyor whose headquarters were at Rocklands Farm, near Adaminaby, New South Wales. For two years Boake was happy in his new surroundings. Here was something novel and interesting, differing greatly from the monotony of Sydney life.

It was while at this farm that he had a most unusual experience. Barcroft was in the kitchen with a friend, Boydie, a girl, and Ted, the farm rouseabout. In a moment of practical joking, it was suggested that they should hang themselves. Boydie merely knotted a handkerchief about his neck, but the impetuous Boake climbed to the rafters, from which hung a rope used for suspending sheep. Tying his handkerchief over his face, he placed the noose (a slip-knot) about his neck. For a time he supported his weight with his hands above his head, but his strength giving out, they slipped to his sides, and he hung there a few minutes gradually lapsing into unconsciousness. Not until nearly too late did the others realise the seriousness of his position. Frantically they cut his body down, and thus Barcroft Henry Boake was saved from a fate to which only a few years later his melancholy drove him. ln a letter to his father at the time he gives a very curious account of his mental experiences while life receded slowly from him, and these were later published in a more polished form in the "Bulletin."

"I no longer possessed a body," he wrote. "Nothing was left of me but my head, and that reposed in the centre of a vast cycloramic enclosure whose walls, inscribed with the names and signs of the various arts and sciences, spun round with a waving, snakelike motion that made my eyes throb with a violent pain." For a while he thought of the futility of life, the pettiness of man. Then he felt himself sink ing, until he was lying on a ferry boat in the harbour. There had been a crash. Men were struggling, women shrieking . . and then his eyes opened to the reality of his position on the floor of the farm kitchen.

By the end of 1888 Boake had yielded completely to the spell of the bush, and left his surveying to become a boundary rider at Mullah Station. While work was plentiful he was happy, but when droving jobs were scarce or offered not enough employment to keep body and soul busy, he was wont to lapse into melancholy and brood.

"I think it is a natural consequence of being face to face with nature so continually," he wrote to his father; "but the great mystery of human nature often comes before me as I ride about. It seems to me so sad and so disheartening ... to toil with the knowledge of the vanity of it all in our hearts. Civilisation is a dead failure; it only brings these truths more forcibly before us; a savage never thinks of such things."

Still there were moments of intense joy. He was experiencing those rich, luxuriant impressions which were later to speak in his verses. He is always the keen rider, the lover of the out-of-doors, and nothing delights him more than to tell of the cattle hunt.

In a letter to his father, dated November, 1889, he mentions having obtained for the first time a full copy of the verses of Adam Lindsay Gordon. For some years, Boake had been an admirer of Gordon, and when later he commenced writing himself he was dubbed "the modern Gordon"! One day his friend, L. C. Raymond, said laughingly: 'You know, if you want to be a second Gordon you must complete the business properly and finish up by committing suicide.' Boake's only reply was a soft, quiet laugh.

In 1800 his droving brought him to Bathurst, and he seized the opportunity of visiting his father for a few days. On his return to Bathurst he discovered that his partner had drunk both his own and Boake's cheque and disappeared. This and his father's urgings persuaded him to take up surveying once again, this time with W. A. Lipscomb in the Riverina. It was during this brief period that Boake turned to verse as a medium of self-expression. "He usually wrote his verses," says Raymond, "on any odd scraps of paper and copied them carefully in a MS. Book, after which they were generally rewritten and handed to me to punctuate before being sent for publication." Acceptance by the "Bulletin" of some of his verse moved him to high spirits, but his was a nature of extremes. He was up one day and down the next.

In Dec 1981 his appointment with Lipscomb ended, and unheralded he appeared upon his father's threshold. Unwelcomed, too, it would appear, for Boake, sen. was at the time depressed over financial embarrassment, and did not want his son's melancholia to join the general pessimism. For five months he remained with his father, the latter end of the stay being irksome to a degree. His father insolvent, his grandmother confined to her bed, himself unable to obtain employment. Boake's spirits sank lower and lower. On May 2 he left the house never to return. Eight days later his body was found suspended by the lash of his stockwhip from a tree on the shore of Long   Bay, one of the arms of Middle Harbour.

Of his verse, the most striking is "Where the Dead Men Lie." It has strength and power of its own, tracing the farflung burial places of the pioneers of the continent, and ending somewhat bitterly:

   Moncygrub as he sips his claret,
      Looks with complacent eye
   Down at his watch-chain, eighteen carat--
      There in his club, hard by:
   Recks not that every link is stamped with
   Names of the men whose limbs are cramped with
   Too long lying in grave mould, camped with
      Death, where the dead men lie!

In his "Song From a Sandhill," he gives a unique impression of a rainy day:--

   Drip, drp, drip! They must be shearing on high,
   Can't you see the snowy fleeces that are rolling, rolling by?
   How many bales, I wonder, are they branding to the clip?
   P'raps the Boss is keeping tally with this drip, drip, drip!

But the real Boake is found in his long, racy, galloping verses, reminiscent of Gordon (he has been called Gordon's poetic son!) In these he has preserved all the thrill of his droving days: 

   Thud of hoofs! thud of hearts! breath of man! breath of beast!
   With Melvor in front and the rest hell to flank
   So we rode in a bunch down a steep river bank.
   Churning up the black tide in the shallows like yeast.

First published in The West Australian, 14 December 1929

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

Reprint: Creator of Images: Victor Daley, Irish-Australian Poet

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Victor James William Patrick Daley was born September 5, 1858, in Navan, County Meath, Ireland, a seat and centre of romance. His father, a soldier, was altogether Celtic - his mother a Morrison of Scottish descent. In after years Daley used to say, "We were always poor and improvident."

Daley's knowledge of Irish legend later charged his verse with "the melancholy regret of the Celt for vanished and remote glories." When he was an infant his father died. He went to live with his grandparents, ardent Fenians, and young Victor often moulded bullets for the cause.

When Daley was 14 his mother remarried, and the family moved to Devonport, England. Here he attended the Christian Brothers' school, and in its library steeped himself in English verse.

At 16 he became a clerk in the Great Western Railway Company's office at Plymouth, but soon grew restless. His stepfather had relatives in Adelaide, and Daley set out for Australia.

Early in 1878 he landed in Sydney, where he was forced at once to take a job as gardener to a clergyman, although he knew nothing of gardening. This soon became apparent to the clergyman, so Daley went to Adelaide and got a job as correspondence clerk.  

He submitted verse to a local paper with fair success, but soon he lost his clerkship. In error he sent a valued client a love lyric instead of a business letter, and was again out of work. He decided to go to New Caledonia, via Melbourne. Arriving in Melbourne, he went to the races to raise the rest of his fare. He lost his all. For a time he wrote racing notes for the Carlton Advertiser. Soon he was taken on the staff, and began writing leaders and verses. His sunny nature, soon brought him scores of acquaintances.

Then, with the musician, Charles Wesley Caddy, Daley set out for Queanbeyan, from where an acquaintance had struck it rich. On their arrival the friend had gone, and Daley became editor of the Queanbeyan Times for five or six months. He then moved to Sydney, writing for the Bulletin and Punch.

In 1888 he came to Melbourne and freelanced for Melbourne and Sydney papers. In 1898 he returned to Sydney, where his first book of verse, At Dawn and Dusk was published.

His health began to fail. In 1902, in the hope that the trip would do him good, he went -- at last - -to New Caledonia. The trip was not a success. He went to Orange, was lonely there, and returned to Sydney, where he died, December 29, 1905. He was buried next day in the Waverley Cemetery near by to the poets Kendall and Deniehy. He left a wife and four children.

Perhaps Bertram Stevens' words are the finest summing up of Daley: "Light-hearted, brave, generous, but weak of will -- the man was finer than his work, and his work is good." H. M. Green, in his An Outline of Australian Literature, writes: "Poetry was the one fixed star in Daley's life. He not only had far more craftsmanship than any of the balladists, but in his blood were that love of words for their own sake, love of sound and imagery, which help to distinguish the poet from the mere versifier. No Australian before him had created so many fine images."

First published in The Argus, 28 October 1944

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

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.

Reprint: The Life and Times of E. J. Brady by Clive Turnbull

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E. J. Brady, who died this week at 82, was one of the lost links with the days when the world was wide -- with the romantic, hopeful, acutely nationalistic Australia of the nineties, when Australian art, literature, and politics all had a flowering, never since repeated.

They were days of low living standards but high hearts. Out of the turmoil, industrial and social, Australians believed, would come a new Australia.

Round about the turn of the century we had all that is most notable in our life.

Broadly, our art was born with Roberts, Streeton, Conder, Mccubbin, and the rest; our literature with Lawson and Tom Collins, Paterson, Daley, Barbara Baynton; our political cast of thought with the Lanes, Brady, and their friends.

After that came a long period of nothing. The creative artists died, or went away, or lost their inspiration. The politicians, in many cases, renounced the visions of their youth, or lapsed into disillusion.

A few people like Brady remained as visible and vocal reminders of the spacious days, carrying with them always a sort of grandeur out of the past, a bigness, making us aware of something lost in our life.

Brady was a roamer in accord with the spirit of his time. As a boy he had gone to North America.

"I crossed it from Frisco to Washington, D.C.," he wrote to me years later, "when the cowboys were still bringing their herds up from Texas.

"The Old Man saw them with me, spreading over the Western plains, 20 years after he had seen the same plains covered with buffalo.

"In my time out West the train sweepers carried two guns slung low and bowie knives in their boots."

Back in Australia, Brady went to school again with Rod. Quinn and George Taylor, author of that delightful book of reminiscence "Those Were The Days."

A clerk in a wool store for a time, he was precipitated into the emerging Labor movement, when, on refusing to become a special constable in the great maritime strike, he was immediately sacked.

He became a "wild leader" of the strike, and at 22 he was editor of the "laborer's Bible," the "Australian Workman" weekly newspaper.

One day Lawson appeared at the "Workman" office; it was a sufficiently important occasion to adjourn for refreshment, leaving the office boy (afterwards Sir Frank Fox) in charge.

With long-sleevers of colonial beer at threepence a go, Brady and Henry discussed the Australian Republic; for those were the days when, in Brady's own words, they dreamed of "the establishment of a new Hellenic democracy."

Brady had a quaint and typical story about Lawson, incidentally. (Brady always had his feet on the ground, but Lawson was naive and childlike in many matters.)

Twenty years or more after the "Australian Workman" days the old friends had a reunion.

"You - old sinner, you ought to have been dead long ago!" Brady said.

"Why? Why did you think that?" asked Lawson.

"The way you knock yourself about."

Lawson pretended to think it over carefully.

"Beer saved my life," he said at last in a voice of simple conviction.

"Beer?"

"Yeth, Ted - Beer."

And he added, after a further reflective pause, "If I'd been drinking hard tack I WOULD have been dead long ago."

The unhappy warrior

In the nineties, Brady roomed with Ernest Lane (still happily flourishing in Queensland), brother of William Lane, of New Australia celebrity.

But the inevitable fissions and disillusionments of radical parties occurred, and Brady gave practical politics away.

At heart he was unchanged.

After half a lifetime the old fires stirred in him. He wrote to his old mate Lane, "With armor dinted by many blows, bearing the marks of countless wounds, you are crying your warcry still, while a sardonic philosophy has led men like myself to nowhere in particular."

Round about this time Brady decided to return to Melbourne to see whether it was possible to kindle in others the visionary fires of the nineties.

It wasn't.

The fate of rebels

No reasonable person would suggest that Brady was a great poet.

But Brady was a good poet, and to understand and to appreciate him and his contemporaries, whether writers, painters, or politicians, you must consider all of them together in the environment of the nineties.

Brady's first book of verse, "The Ways of Many Waters," was published in 1899 by the "Bulletin"; most of its contents had appeared in the "Bulletin" and in the Sydney "Sunday Times."

These ballads of the sea were the best things Brady ever wrote; something went out with him when the "sardonic philosophy" of which he spoke replaced the earlier passionate faith.

"Lost and Given Over" and "Down in Honolulu" are probably the best known; my own feeling is that "I've Got Bad News" is, perhaps, the best.

This is the story of a sailor who, in time of industrial depression, threatens the master with a marlin spike, and is shot dead for his act:

   He laid his hand to a marlin-spike --
   Oh, he was a man to know!
   And the deck ran red where he fell and bled,
   But he shouldn't have acted so.

Here, it seems, are the beginnings of Brady's sardonic philosophy -- some rebels recant, but others who lay their hands to marlin-spikes are shot down. If they wanted to survive, in a world of injustice, they "shouldn't have acted so."

It is a general rule in Aus-tralia (the only, exception I can think of is the case of Dame Mary Gilmore) that creative writers are never honored by nation or by academic bodies whose distinctions are reserved for people who write about writing, who index it, or who collect it.

Officially, creative art of any kind is not respectable.  

Brady belonged to a generation when artists, very certainly, were not respectable in the eyes of bumbledom; they were poor, they drank too much beer, and sometimes they were political rebels.  

Some of them got over being rebels; some of them (such as Brady) never drank beer excessively anyway; but none of them ever got over being poor.  

Men like Henry Lawson were poor because they were essentially unworldly.  

Brady wasn't unworldly.  He said cynically that anyone who understood Marx could play the stock market successfully -- if he could be bothered.  

Dilemma of a nation

Brady's dilemma was not peculiar to him-self or to his generation.  It is Australia's dilemma.  

We no longer believe that the Hellenic democracy is imminent, practicable, or even possible.  

We can't recapture the raptures which moved Victor Daley and his friends, or the poetic vision of the young Streeton and his friend Conder.  

At the moment, officially, we don't seem to believe anything at all; unless it is that in some mysterious way we can be economically and spiritually saved by an infusion of Italians and West Germans.  

Fifty years without a national vision is a long time.  

It remains for us to find another.  

[Books to which I have specifically referred are: "Those Were the Days," by George A. Taylor (Sydney: Tyrrell's Ltd., 1918); "Henry Lawson," by His Mates (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1931) ; "Dawn to Dusk," by E. H. Lane (Brisbane, 1939) ; and "The Ways of Many Waters" by E. J. Brady (Sydney: The Bulletin Newspaper Co. Ltd., 1899).] 

First published in The Argus, 26 July 1952

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

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also

Dr. Karl Wolfskehl, a German author and philosopher, who recently visited Australia, described the late C. J. Brennan as one of the most interesting poets of modern times. This estimate confirms the belief of the many admirers of Chris. Brennan in the greatness of his work. As the publisher of the first edition of his poems in 1913 I have set down here some recollections of a distingushed son of New South Wales.

Christy Brennan, the poet's father, with a sound knowledge of his trade as a brewer learned with the famous firm of Guinness in Dublin, emigrated to Sydney, and soon secured a position with the Castlemaine Brewery, on the site now occupied by the new Municipal Markets, at the junction of Hay and Quay Streets. He was one of the first brewers to bottle colonial beer, in the Colonies. The firm, doubtful of the experiment, decided to call it Brennan's Beer after the name of their brewer. One of Chris Brennan's cherished heirlooms was an original label placed on the bottles.

Preferred the Classics.

Christopher Brennan, senior, married a lass from Ireland, and their son was born on November 1, 1870. They cherished the hope that the lad, a promising scholar at St. Ignatius, Riverview, would enter the priesthood and accompany Cardinal Moran to Rome to study there, and it was a great disappointment when just before the close of his college days he wrote that he felt he had no vocation for the Church. His place was taken by a contemporary, Stephen Burke, who reached a high position in his calling.

Disappointed but not dismayed, his father saw visions, so dear to Irishmen, of his son devoting his talents to the Bar, or the Parliament of his country -- but it was not to be. The call of the classics and literature was too strong, and his parents ultimately lived to see him a Professor of his University and one of the leading poets of his day.

It was at the student stage of his life that our life-long friendship commenced. When seeking for the text books required for his first year, he was not satisfied with the editions recommended by the University Professors and those of the lending English Educational Publishers. He required annotated editions from Germany and other countries. Few students acquired such a complete collection of classics for their University courses, and I can remember procuring a large edition of "Lucretius" from Germany. All these contributed to lay the foundation for some of the most beautiful classical poems in the English language. Naturally, he cast his eyes farther afield to the great seats of learning in Europe, and his efforts were eventually crowned with success when he was awarded the much-coveted James King of Irrawang Scholarship, tenable for two years abroad. He selected Germany for the continuance of his studies, which took him from his native land for two years.

A high-spirited incident of his undergraduate days nearly cost. Chris. Brennan his University career. When his father heard with horror, being unversed in the ways of under-graduates, that his son entered the lecture room with jam tins and horse shoes decorating the fringe of his University gown, he thought he would be more usefully employed at the brewery washing bottles. The experiment did not meet with the success it probably deserved. The early start at 6 a.m. had its disadvantages, and the dreamy nature of a poet caused young Chris. to wander away from his uncongenial occupation under a goods lift which came down and nearly extinguished the future poet and scholar. His father concluding that Chris. would be safer dreaming in the open spaces of the University, Chris. was back in the lecture-room the next morning. A poor bottle washer was lost to the brewery trade and a brilliant student added to the world.

Brennan had entered the University in 1888, and in his first year he gained first-class honours in Classics. In his second year he again obtained first-class honours in Classics; in his third year he obtained second-class honours in Classics, and was awarded the gold medal and first-class honours for Logic and Mental Philosophy. He graduated in 1891, and was admitted to the M.A. degree in 1892.

Among the Books.

Returning from Germany with a vast knowledge of classical and modern languages, but with limited prospects for such accomplishments, Brennan secured a position as assistant librarian and cataloguer at the Free Public Library. It seemed in those days that many of his cherished hopes were to end on the rock of fiuitless endeavour, but he found compensation in the formation of a life long friendship with his two fellow assistants -- F. R. Jordan, who was to become Chief Justice and Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, and John Quinn, later one of the leading librarians of the Commonwealth.

The library position not being arduous Chris Brennan had time to devote himself to poetry, and later friends approached him to allow a collection of his work to be published by subscription, releasing him from all financial responsibilities. A debt of gratitude is due to the late Judge Edmunds for sponsoring the undertaking. The subscription list contained the names of some of the leading citizens of the day, including Sir George Wigram Allen, Sir Julian Salamons and Sir Joseph Abbott. Some years later the subscription list was reopened and the work was completed, but many of the subscribers had passed away. I realise to-day how I should have cherished that subscription list.

The edition when printed containted a list of some of the original subscribers, headed by Lord Noithcote and Sir Harry Rawson. Subsequently Brennan was appointed lecturer and professor of German and Comparative Literature. He was a familial figure in the leading new and second-hand bookshops, spending some of his happiest moments wandering round the bookshelves, the great attraction being the second-hand classics. All thoughts of the commercial side were lost and it was with a troubled feeling that one saw the pile of old classics gradually growing higher by his side, knowing that they augmented an already overburdened account; the only consolation being that probably the books were mostly beyond any other clients' requirements.

I persuaded him to translate some of the set authors -- Livy and others -- and write some articles for the New South Wales Teacher and Tutorial Guide, the one on "Julius Caesar" being one of the best contributions that ever appeared in the journal. He subsequently relinquished his professorship, and passed away, suddenly on October 5, 1932.

Criticism of his work I leave to others, though not without retelling a saying of Disraeli. "You know who your critics are, the man that has failed in literature and art."

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 December 1938

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

Reprint: The Dennis of the Early Days by Randolph Bedford

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The death of Clarence Dennis removes yet another of the men who belonged to the Australia that is no more; to the pre-war days when life in Australia was brave and cheerful. In 1913 Dennis, David McKee Wright, Henry Lawson, and myself produced a daily for the Federal elections, published by the Sydney Worker, and having a great circulation at the published price of a ha'penny. Lawson, trying to reduce his Australianism to politics, and succeeding, although his deafness cut him loose from half of life; David McKee Wright, forgetting the fairies of Irish poetry to write topical verses; Dennis writing topical verses also; myself roaring "Australia" at the top of an energetic voice; and Dennis, after the last edition of the paper was put to bed at about 5 in the afternoon, reading in the bar of the old Edinburgh Castle the script of the "Sentimental Bloke" long before it saw print.

Our daily ran for a month before election day,
and apparently we were a great success, as W. M. Hughes had a 13,000 majority-- his publicity cost of the election being £2/15/, in 10 lots of advertising dodgers at 5/6 each. Even then, 25 years ago, Dennis, was a frail man -- or rather frail boy! Because he was always a boy. The memory of "Den" is for me the memory of courage-- of a brave thing in a weak body, living on the strength of a spirit that carried him for many years.

When I think of courage at its highest in men it is not the courage that makes for spectacle. Heinie, invalid for most of his life, singing his brave songs in exile; Carlyle the dyspeptic, stunned by the loss of the MSS of his French Revolution, saying, "I must write it better"; bedridden Henley insisting that he is the captain of his soul; Robert Louis Stevenson, marked for early death, yet writing as if he would live for ever; Victor Daley, sapped by tuberculosis, yet thinking clearly to the end and singing his songs as if he were to be on this earth immortal; all the heroes of brush and pen who have fended off their own dissolution by newly creating humour and beauty-- these are the epic men of the world.

And of them was C. J. Dennis. More terrible than active pain is the slow suffocation of disease of respiration; the recurrent sensation of impending death; the recovery only to die again a many deaths. Dennis had that experience of smothering horror daily repeated for many years, and he worked and chuckled in verse and was cheerful enough to help thousands of people-- also hopeless, but not articulate.

It is a long way back to our ha'penny paper in 1913, but in the end Clarence Dennis had not   greatly changed. Painfully then, always-- his life was a battle of willing spirit and physical frailty. The part of the real writer is to ease the irritations of the reader and bring to him distraction from the working troubles of a life that is often hard and at the best is pitifully short. To the people weary of struggle the man who can deliver humour and cheerfulness is a benefactor, and, so judged, Charles Dennis deserves well of his country.

First published in The Courier-Mail, 23 June 1938

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

A paragraph in the obituary column recently took my thoughts back to a small room on an upper floor of a building in the heart of Brisbane. I see again a troop of fairies dancing about the whitewashed walls of that dingy little chamber-green fairies, pink fairies, and elves of other colours: some coy, some roguish, and all very dainty. Some are frolicking; others are perched sedately on the crowns of mushrooms and toadstools. Between the elfin groups are several small paintings and a number of inscribed photographs, of poets and musicians. The floor space of the room is equally crowded, it has shelves containing large quantities, untidily arranged, of articles and poems clipped by their author from newspapers and magazines; a small table, upon which rests a vase of flowers and a battered old typewriter; a chair facing the machine, and a visitor's chair near the door; an ancient couch to provide surcease from labour, and, supporting the gesture of hospitality made by that second chair, a small primus stove. In the chair facing the typewriter, her elbows resting on the table, and her dark, unusual eyes glowing behind glasses, sits the woman who is literally the presiding genius of this room. It is she who has caused the fairies to dance on the walls, even as she caused them during many years to dance on the printed page.

Alas, though, I write only of a memory. The fairies of the city room vanished some years ago when failing health compelled their creator to forsake the spot, and she herself was "made one with Nature" on March 18, when, as the obituary columns recorded, Mabel Forrest, poet and novelist, passed away. By that event Australia lost one of the most gifted women she has ever produced. Nevertheless, I for one am not wholly sorry that she has gone. She had suffered much, in many, ways, especially so in recent years. Indeed, she gave considerably more to life than life gave to her. Almost it seemed that the high gods, having equipped this daughter of a Queensland station with strange talents -- strange in the sense that poetic ability did not "run in the family," and was not stimulated by education determined capriciously to plague her with mundane misfortunes.

Thus there was not perhaps one year of her married life free from misadventure of some kind. Nor did she experience calmness in widowhood and middle-age. Her aged mother was killed in a street accident; various little affairs of business"went wrong," and in the meantime a weak heart frequently left her prostrated and unable to work. Her consolations were the affection of her daughter -- and of late of her grandchildren -- her poetry, her friends, her fairies, and, season by season, flowers of all kinds. Rarely did the table in the quaint little Room of the Fairies lack flowers from various gardens of Queensland.

Facility in Versemaking

Surely Mrs. Forrest's life was a striking example of courage and industry in the face of adversity. For more than 30 years she contributed a steady stream of verse and short stories to publications throughout Australia -- and recently England and America -- and for a considerable portion of that time her typewriter was her sole means of livelihood. No other woman in the Commonwealth has contrived to maintain herself by freelance work for such a long time. Five books of verse and four novels -- most of them published within the last 10 years -- represent a considerable achievement for any Australian, but   these are merely a modest portion of the entire body of literary production accomplished by Mrs. Forrest. Necessarily much of her work was "pot-boiling," and of no real merit, but the amount of good verse relative to the total quantity written by this industrious and sorely-tried woman is somewhat astonishing.

Both the quantity and the quality is explained by the fact that she was a "natural" poet. It is an odd thing that women poets in Australia appear to be more facile than men. At any rate, Mrs. Forrest's verse fell from her typewriter with extraordinary sureness. A brain teeming with elfin fancies and colours created ideas without stint, and happy words waited upon the ideas right heartily, so that the writing of a poem was less of a tax upon her mentality than it was upon her physical resources. It was a custom of hers to write me gossipy letters on the back of carbon copies of poems that had won approval from various editors, and in every instance it could be noted that the "second thoughts," the alterations," were very few. Many of the verses went from the typewriter to print without a word being amended. The one weakness was punctuation -- and in this Mrs Forrest was not singular among women writers.   Once an academic visitor -- he was among those who had the superficial impression that the signature, "M. Forrest," belonged to a man -- attempted to present her with a book dealing with the niceties of verse-making. The idea, it seemed, was to improve her work technically. Mrs. Forrest would have none of it. She had never "learned" verse-making, she said, and did not propose to begin after she had won editorial and public approval for a quarter-century. So, sitting in her little Room of the Fariies, she smiled blandly across the typewriter at her mentor, just as she smiled at scores of other visitors who came to offer either advice or homage, and then she went on with her work in the some old non-technical way.

A Poet's Self-epitaph

Poems came to Mrs. Forrest of their own accord, as it were. More than once she dreamed of a colourful scene, or a gay romance, and set it down in verse soon after waking. Sir Matthew Nathan, then Governor of Queensland, once described to her a 15th century window in his English home, and was charmed soon afterward to receive a dainty poem, full of quaint conceits, framed around that window. Several years ago I wrote in a book of the glories of the Macpherson Range, and told of the things to be seen and heard when sitting on a doorstep at dawn on the edge of a jungle. That "doorstop at dawn" caught Mrs. Forrest's fancy, and the verses she wrote around the phrase contained imaginings even brighter than the original scene. Another "objective" poem, and a charming trifle it was, had

her old typewriter as its subject. Another, vivid and colourful, was based upon a picturesque pumpkin seen at the Brisbane Show. (Did not Furnley Maurice once say that he would like to write a poem on an old boot?) Mrs. Forrest also wrote in verse what may be regarded as her own epitaph. Imagining the poet to die in the autumn -- which she herself did -- she wrote three verses mingling colour and irony, and then added this expressive verse:-  

   If I should make her epitaph
      It would be writ in petals fair:
   'Twould be half sob and half a laugh
      The scented phrase I'd fashion there   
   (More true than chiselled ones, perchance),   
   "She used to hear the fairies dance".

No other Australian poet, with the possible exception of Hugh McCrae has displayed such aptitude for creating pictures in verse. Colour for her had "a universal tongue" and under its influence her fancy roamed in far places. She had never travelled. "It is extraordinary," she once said to me, "that I am always in the same place while my friends move around the earth." Nevertheless her vivid imagination took her to scenes denied to others. She roamed in secret places of the earth, among vanished nations, in Eastern cities, in glorious gardens, among "peach blossoms blowing over sodden grass," beside singing brooks, and even   among "ribbons on city counters, rolled like tyres for pixy cars." She was fond of the verse of Lord Dunsany, and when she read his phrase, "And the butterflies sang of lost pink cities," she was away immediately on wings of fancy to that enchanted spot: -

   The city that I know to-day is grey,  
      Grey river and grey tower and greyer street;
   But sometimes, at the coming of the spring
      I hear a distant fluting, honey sweet,
   And guess, unseen, a ghostly player cries     
   The lost pink cities of the butterflies.

Life, as I have said, frequently bore very harshly upon Mabel Forrest, but always there were compensations; always there were the "lost pink cities of the butterflies." It is, I think, by and through these compensations that she would wish to be remembered -- not as the woman who smiled wanly and said, "I have had a dreadful time this year," but as the poet who "used to hear the fairies dance."

First published in The Argus, 6 April 1935

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

Reprint: Ada Cambridge by Amy E. Mack

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I had a visit this week from a well-known Australian, Ada Cambridge (Mrs. Cross). For the past three years she has been living in England, practically in retirement. She herself says:- "I am too old to make new friends, and I cannot be bothered with acquaintances." But when she knew that I was living at Cambridge she came at once to see me and make my acquaintance, because I am an Australian, and her heart is hungry for our land.

Ada Cambridge, as all readers of her "Thirty Years in Australia" know, is an Englishwoman; but all the best years of her life, the years that really count, were spent in Australia; her children and grandchildren are there, and her one longing is to go back, her one fear that she may die here in the north land. To all intents and purposes she is an Australian, and it was very sweet to meet her and talk about home. She knows Victoria best, of course, but over here the little differences of States all disappear, and it doesn't matter whether one comes from Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, or New South Wales -- we are just Australians. She wanted to know all about friends out there, and her memory of them was as fresh as if she had left them yesterday.

She is not writing very much now. "A book a year for twenty years is," she said, "a big effort when a woman is bringing up a family as well. And I seem to have lost my taste both for reading, and writing novels. I published one last year, but I was not very interested in writing it, and it stretched itself out in the making over nearly three years. Some of the criticisms were very amusing. During my silence of some years a new generation of reviewers has grown up in some of the papers, and several referred to my book as "the first effort of a new writer." Some of them spoke quite encouragingly, and prophesied that I should do something worth- while if I persevered. But you know Zangwill had the same experience, so I cannot feel hurt."

She has not laid by her pen altogether, but finds great pleasure in writing occasional essays of a philosophical nature, chiefly for two American magazines, the "Atlantic Monthly" and the "North American Review."

We had a lovely, friendly afternoon together. It was her first call, but there was nothing formal about it, no watching of the clock for fear of outstaying the conventional time. But we talked and talked, like old friends, and when it was time for her to go I strolled over the common with her in the real Australian fashion of seeing each other home.

"You had better come and see where we live, so that you will be able to find your way," she said.

So I went all the way to her home, the home which she has made so charming and comfortable that it has become an anchor here, keeping her from her beloved Australia. A green plot at the back was surrounded by fruit trees in full bloom; in front a border of bright blue forget-me-nots and brown and golden wallflowers made a lovely show. It was a typically English garden, but the owner did something that was by no means typically English. Stooping down, she plucked a great bunch of the flowers, with a prodigal disregard for the spoilt effect of the beds, and thrust into my hands the very first bunch of flowers that has been given me out of an English garden.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 June 1915

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

Reprint: George Essex Evans by S.B.

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Two names generally are at once mentioned when men speak of Queensland poets -- Brunton Stephens and George Essex Evans. Both were Englishmen, and both are dead. They were close friends and mutual critics and mutual admirers. Evans, though English, was Welsh in paternal descent. He was born in London on June 18, 1863. He was educated at Haverford West and at the Channel Island of Jersey. His master in Jersey was the Rev. Mr. Le Breton, the father of the Mrs. Langtry who first was famous as a beauty and then as an actress. Essex Evans often spoke of Lily Langtry, whom he knew very well while he was at her father's school. He came to Queensland when a youth, at about 18 years of age and joined his brother John on a farm near Allora, Darling Downs. After some experience there he went away to the Gulf of Carpentaria with a survey party and found the life pleasant. The great open spaces appealed to him and the wonderful sincerity of personal relationships out there; but he had a bad accident, a broken leg which really never became sound again, though he continued as a fine athlete. He was sturdily built, and very powerful, a first-rate wrestler, a speedy runner and he represented Queensland in Rugby Union football against New South Wales. Later he as a matter rather of compulsion confined his athletics to long walks. After his experience in the Gulf country he returned to the farm at Allora, but that life was not congenial, nor was it profitable.   Vainly one remonstrated and spoke of the great poet who "went singing down his corn." Essex Evans simply hated the daily round on the farm. He had thoughts of other things. "He had the impulse of the poet, not of the farmer. Those who were his intimates in later years know the story, and those who did not know Evans personally will find it in his work, as, for instance, in the poem "Out of the Silence" published in his last book:

      Here in the silence cometh unto me
               A song that is not mine,
      With wash of waves along the cold shore line,
      And sob of wind, and rain upon the sea.

In many of his even later poems are found the repercussions of his Gulf of Carpentaria days. Of these may be particularised "A Pastoral," "The Grey Road," "On the Plains" -- two poems in the one volume there are of this title -- and Essex Evans told the writer that all through his time in the North-West he felt the call of the restful wildernesses, and the lines :

      Calm are the plains -- when the moon's clear beams are shed
      And the wilds lie hushed, all shrouded in silver grey --

had been singing through his mind for years before he put them into form.

It was while at Allora that he first took his courage in both hands and sent some verses to the "Queenslander." Mr. Joseph Butterfield thought well of them, and they were published under the pen-name of "Christophus." The young poet continued to send his work to the "Queenslander," and soon it attracted more than notice, and at the advice of one who was a stranger then he wrote above his name. To the same adviser, in long after years, in 1906, he sent a copy of "The Secret Key, and Other Verses," inscribed "To --- who, more than 20 years ago, was the first to detect any merit in my verse and to give me encouragement, from his chum Geo. Essex Evans." The poet became a regular contributor to the "Queenslander" and "Courier" with verse, narrative poems, short sketches, and humorous stories in rhyme. Later he joined the staff of the papers and did much good work, but on being appointed to a Government office at Toowoomba he gave up Press work and devoted his spare hours to poetry and literature generally, and he promoted and edited "The Antipodean." His next work for the Government was the writing of booklets upon the State for publication by the Intelligence Bureau, and these contained many prose gems which had the heart-whole admiration of so fine a critic as the late Mr. P. J. M'Dermott, Under Secretary to the Chief Secretary's Department, who was the poet's official head. Essex Evans lived part time in Brisbane, but his home and his heart were at Toowoomba, or just down the range from the Queen City, near the old Toll Bar, and the site of "Glenbar" of his days is often pointed out to those interested in the higher things of Queensland life. The poet married a widowed daughter of the Rev. E. Eglinton, a sister of the late Mr. Ernest Eglinton, P.M., and of Mr. Dudley Eglinton, a well-known writer on scientific subjects. Mrs. Essex Evans survives, and a son, a younger Essex Evans, is a fine young fellow in the service of the National Bank of Australasia.

George Essex Evans died at Toowoomba on November 10, 1909 after an operation. His death was a shock to his family and to many friends. At Toowoomba, in Webb Park, overlooking the Range, a monument to the poet has been erected, and on it -- North, South, East and West -- are verses from his beautiful tribute to "The Mountain Queen."  

THE WORK OF ESSEX EVANS

Some years ago a prize was offered at Toowoomba for the best essay or appreciation of the poems of Essex Evans. The judges were Mr Littleton Groom, now Sir Littleton, and the writer of this article. The prize was awarded to Mr. Heber Longman, now Director of the Queensland Museum and a well known writer on literary and scientific subjects. A point influencing the judges was that Mr Longman waa discriminating. One other essay was beautifully done, but it was a eulogy without discrimination. In appreciating Essex Evans's poems discrimination is necessary. Though in his earlier work there is much that is very fine and beautiful the quality is very uneven. The poet knew that. He felt, and often said so, that he was evolving, finding the correct expression and he was not by any means satisfied that he had done his best work. But even of his earlier work much was distinctive, and in the whole range of what he accomplished only one poem can be classed as under an influence. The very fine thing "A Medley" has the metre, and in places other similarities, of the "Locksley Hall " of Tennyson. The colour is Australian, but part of the philosophy is Tennysonian. One catches the environment in

      Eastward in the skies of morning rosy tinges streak the gray,
      Bars of crimson change to golden-glitt'ring heralds of the day,  
      Like a blood-red shield uprising swims the sun in palest blue,
      Crowne the hills with crests of splendour, flashes on the trembling dew --

And the other spirit is in this:  

      He is best and he is noblest who has kept through good and ill
      Something of his purer nature, something of his childhood still.

A writer in the London "Daily Telegraph," reviewing "The Secret Key and Other Verses," selected for special consideration "The Song of Gracia " This was quoted and described as standing in beauty of thought and expression with much that was best in English verse. For the benefit of those who do not know the poem the following extract is given, "torn from its context" though it be:

      Two violets, seeking Paradise,
      Have hid themselves within her eyes.
      Her lips are roses. She doth wear
      A sunbeam woven in her hair.
      And of the foam-flake of the sea   
      Her cheek and neck and bosom be.

That is very different from the slogging style of the stirring indictment "Ode to the Philistines," from the popular "The Women of the West," and from other of the more known of the poet's work. It will perhaps interest readers to know that though Essex Evans was not a phrase-maker and had no pose in that respect he loved certain little things that he wrote. In "An Australian Symphony" he has the following :-  

      Could tints be deeper, skies less dim,
         More soft and fair,
      Dappled with milk-white clouds that swim
         In faintest air?
      The soft moss sleeps upon the stone,
      Green scrub-vine traceries enthrone
      The dead gray trunks and boulders red --

He was very fond of his line, "The soft moss sleeps upon the stone." It is certainly very beautifully expressed. It will perhaps be remembered that on the accomplishment of Federation a substantial prize was offered for the best ode on "Commonwealth Day." It was awarded to the Queensland poet, George Essex Evans. That was a great gratification to him and to his friends, and certainly his ode was a very brilliant and very stirring tiling. It opened with:

      Awake! Arise! The wings of dawn
         Are beating at the Gates o' Day!
      The morning star hath been withdrawn,
         The silver vapours meit away!
      Rise royally, O Sun, and crown
         The shoreward billow, streaming white,
      The forelands and the mountains brown,
         With crested light --

And the conclusion is very fine :

      From shameless speech, and vengeful deed,
         From license veiled in freedom's name,
      From greed of gold and scorn of creed,
         Guard thou our fame!  
      In stress of days that yet may be  
         When hope shall rest upon the sword,
      In Welfare and Adversity,
         Be with us, Lord!

That was written before the "Recessional" of Kipling. With an intimate knowledge of the work of George Essex Evans the writer's view is that outstanding and of greatest value is "Lux in Tenebris." On the occasion of a lecture by Mr. Henry Tardent -- a most appreciative friend of the poet -- at the rooms of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Matthew Nathan said he considered the poem the best thing Essex Evans had done, and to the very great pleasure of the audience he recited it. The sweeter things, and the more stirring things of the post are the more popular to-day, but "Lux in Tenebris" is the best monument of George Essex Evans. And as a music lover the writer submits the following :

      O Poets, round whose souls, since the beginning,
         Strange echoes tremble and wild visions throng,
      Ye all have heard the sweetness of the singing,
         But no man knows the meaning of the song --

By the death of Essex Evans Queens- land and Australia lost a poet who accomplished much, but the full harvest of whose genius had not been gathered. The Queenslander, as we claim him, holds a high place in the estimation of the critics and all who know his work, and it reveals a very fine mind and strong masculinity, combined with culture and refinement.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 14 October 1927

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

Note: you can read the full text of the Essex Evans poem, "Ode for Commonwealth Day".

Many young Australian writers, desperate at the lack of book-publishing facilities in Australia, have gone abroad, to see publishers in England or America and, having found publishers they have stayed away from this country -- for their own good. Why should an author remain in Australia, to be treated with indifference by his own people, they say, when fame and recognition are to be had in London or New York? Such an export of talent is a loss to Australia. We can only admire those who have remained here to pioneer Australian Literature as their fathers pioneered the economic resources of this vast and uncultivated continent. Frank Dalby Davison is one of the young Australians, of a new generation of writers, who is determined to make his literary home amongst his own people.

Unable to find a publisher for his first two books, "Man Shy" and "Forever Morning," he had them printed and published privately, encouraged and assisted by his father, Mr. Fred. Davison, a Sydney estate agent, who is also possessed of strong literary gifts and is a sound critic. Compared with the finished-looking products of professional publishers, young Davison's books were crudely printed and bound, and looked amateurish in the extreme. One blushed to think that such poor-looking books were representative of Australian literature. But readers of the books had a pleasant surprise in store. In Frank Dalby Davison's books discerning readers saw the power and fluency and word-control that marks the great writer. A new star had risen in the Australian literary firmament.

The first editions were eagerly bought up. "Man Shy" was awarded the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal for the best Australian novel published in 1931. Angus and Robertson, Ltd., of Sydney, republished the books in proper professional style. Frank Dalby Davison had "arrived."

The first two novels both dealt with men and cattle in the Australian bush. "Man Shy" tells of the herds of wild cattle ("scrubbers") that ranged in the mountains beyond the boundaries of a cattle-station on the Maranoa, in Queensland. They were like a "phantom herd" that had been in existence for sixty years:

Theirs was a life for the brute slaves of man to dream of. Their hides had never known the searing whip, or the sting of the branding iron; nor did the shadow of the slaughterhouse fall across their years. Companions of the wilder- ness creatures -- the emu, the dingo, and the kangaroo-- their life was the life of dumb brutes as it was on earth in the beginning. They were free as the winds that played about their mountains; free as the rains that swept up the gorges; and as free as the range itself, hoisting its timber-crested palisades into the blue. They lived secure and content in the simple wisdom the Creator has given to dumb things.

In every paragraph of this remarkable Australian story the author builds up in simple, but unforgettable imagery, the life of the wild herd. His similes are drawn directly from nature:

The narrow pads along which they passed in single file from one feeding ground to another lay in the mountains like the webbed veins in the back of a leaf. 

The observation of the bushland never errs. The author has not drawn upon his imagination, but on his knowledge, in writing such passages as, for example, the following description of a fight between two bulls:

Prelude to battle was observed with due ceremony. Eyeing each other from a distance of about forty yards, each roared his contempt at the other. Each stroked the ground with a challenging forefoot, flinging the dust back along his flanks. They walked a few paces towards each other, and paused. Their battle-cry was a succession of throaty grumbles, each pitched about a tone higher than the preceding one; each followed by a sobbing intake of the breath; and the last one ending in a blast that threatened annihilation. With short, measured steps they again moved towards each other, heads lowering to engage. 

A quick eye! That is precisely what Davison himself possesses, and it is the essential qualification for a writer. Things seen and noted, simply and graphically told -- such is the material of all great art. Like the painter of pictures in oils, the writer, who is a painter of pictures in words, must trust his eye, and use his eye, before he begins to use his pen. Frank Davison understands this. He has looked closely at Australia before beginning to write about it. He has looked through his own eyes and not through the spectacles kindly provided for our use by English, and other visitors, to this country. That is why the work of Frank Dalby Davison is a portent for the future of the Australian novel. Only one other writer -- Miles Franklin -- has written so directly and with such surely observed knowledge of horses and cattle in the Australian scene. This is real Australia, one feels, not the romantic Australia of "bookish" writers.

Frank Davison's future work will be watched with great interest by those who look forward to a powerful Australian literature, strong-rooted in the soil. "I am Australian by birth and by conviction," he has stated. It will be interesting to see whether he can write of the Australian bush in a manner interesting to people who live abroad, as Vance Palmer has done in "The Passage," and Katherine Pritchard in "Working Bullocks." But he is more likely to succeed if he writes for his own people first.

Angus and Robertson have just published a new story of his entitled "The Wells of Beersheba," which deals with the Australian Light Horse, in Palestine. This book is not a novel, but a long "short-story" in book form, intended as a Gift Book.

Frank Dalby Davison is an Australian writer well worth watching.

First published in The West Australian, 27 May 1933

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

Reprint: Australian Authors VIII: Vance Palmer by Aidan de Brune

When you begin reading any book or magazine story written by Vance Palmer, you may do so with the comfortable feeling that you are going to be well satisfied when you reach the end. There is nothing erratic about his literary work; it is level, flawless and polished, like a table made from Queensland silky oak by a cabinet-maker who takes pride in his trade. Vance Palmer is an accomplished journeyman -- a craftsman in words who has served his apprenticeship thoroughly, and has mastered his trade, giving you guaranteed good value for money when you buy what he has made with his pen. "A typical Vance Palmer four-square yarn," means a story well constructed, written with care, with no loose ends in the plot, and no slovenly phrasing. His name on a book is a trade mark that you can trust.

Discussion of the major Australian novelists of to-day invariably begins with the brilliant constellation of women writers who have come to the fore in recent years. Henry Handel Richardson, Brent of Bin Bin, Katherine Prichard, Velia Ercole, Barnet Eldershaw, G. B. Lancaster, Alice Rosman, Helen Simpson -- a surprisingly strong list of Australian writers -- to begin with, all known and respected in England and America -- and all women! The discussion turns to men writers. Invariably someone says, 'Well, there is Vance Palmer. . . ' His name comes first to mind. With Dale Collins and Jack McLaren he has presented the Australian theme to English and American readers in a certain virile, straight forward, sincere and unassuming way that lacks the wild emotional force of the woman writers but is no less convincing and genuinely Australian for that. Here is the Australian male in literature, modern but capable and full of a quiet strength, as he is in life.

Like the "Champion Ringer" famed in western shearing sheds, Vance Palmer comes from Queensland. He was born in Bundaberg, the sugar-town at the mouth of the Burnett River. In his early and impressionable youth he must have seen the picturesque gangs of Kanakas cutting the tall green cane and singing their deep-voiced Island songs as they flashed the broad cane-knives, in the sunlight. He would have seen, too, the white labourers, the roughest-mannered but physically the most perfect speciments of masculinity to be found anywhere on the earth, arriving at the cane fields after shearing sheds were cut out, for a few months' big pay and desperately hard work, "cane-slogging." Perhaps he saw fights and riots between Kanakas and white labourers, or watched great muscled timber fellers, stripped to the waist, sweating in the sun as they cleared the jungle from the Isis scriblands, revealing the rich, red volcanic loam where in more and more sugar cane was to be planted. Perhaps, too, he went to the Sand Hills, where the Burnett River flows out to the ocean, and watched the gulls planing over the dunes where another young native of Bundaberg, Bert Hinkler, made and flew box kites the size of aeroplanes even before the triumphs of Wilbur Wright and Bleriot. And no doubt in the Burnett River young Palmer caught eeratodi, the archaic fish that can live out of water, and are found only in that stream.

Colour, strength, romance, during the impressionable age of childhood gave him a background for his writing which he has never lost, for all his later sophistication and urbanity, and world-travelling, and painfully acquired "literariness." Asked recently to express an opinion on Australia as a literary theme. Palmer replied:

"A man can only write about the life he knows. If he is an Australian he will naturally take his themes from his own country. I have written countless magazine stories set in places as far apart as China and Mexico, but I wouldn't attempt any serious work set in those countries -- they don't stimulate my deepest interest. Australia can provide all the themes required by any writer who knows his country."

There is a brave and heartening declaration from one who has travelled all the world, and proved himself a master of the literary trade! Vance Palmer has been four times to London on literary business, and once on the business of the A.I.F. He spent a year travelling through Russia and Siberia, in the days before the revolution, incidentally learning much about his job of writing from the works of the great Russian masters, Tolstoi, Gorki, Dostoevski, Poushkin -- all geniuses of narrative style and psychological insight. He has sojourned in the colourful East, and has lived through the uncertainties, terrors and comedy of a revolution in Mexico. Yet always he has returned to Australia, and in his serious work it is always of Australia that he writes. His early days in Bundaberg, and at the Ipswich Grammar School (Queensland's "Athens"), the days which he spent as a jackeroo on a Western Queensland cattle station, and what he noticed when living on the edge of the crashing surf at Caloundra, near Brisbane, or during the year which he spent recently on Green Isand, near Cairns, on the Barrier Reef -- these essentially Australian experiences have given him and will continue to give him, the inspiration for his best work.

His books, like those of all the best Australian authors, are difficult or impossible to obtain from Australian book sellers; who will offer you, instead, English "throw-out" lines if you ask for decent reading matter. Something will be done about this, no doubt, when Australian publishing gets firmly established. The best of Vance Palmer's novels, all recently published in England, are "The Man Hamilton" (1908), "Men are Human" (1930), "The Passage'' (1930), and "Daybreak." "Men are Human" and "The Passage" were "Bulletin" prize-winners. A collection of his short stories, entitled "Separate Lives," was published in 1931; and a book of plays entitled "The Black Horse" was issued in 1924.

He is one of the foremost of the gallant band who are endeavouring to convince the Australian public that Australia as a country is interesting to read about. "It will probably take a lot of writing, of the highest class," he says, "to convince Australians that their life is as interesting as any other."

Vance Palmer's work is of the "highest class," and we are proud of him for that reason.

First published in The West Australian, 20 May 1933

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

Reprint: Australian Authors VII: Dulcie Deamer by Aidan de Brune

Dulcie Deamer has had an adventurous life. She was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1890, her father being a doctor.

She never went to school, her mother being her sole teacher. At the age of eight she was allowed the unrestricted run of her father's fine library, and she read the novels of Lord Lytton and Sir Walter Scott, abhorring -- as she confesses -- all "children's" books. Her hobbies were natural history and archaeology, and whatever books she wanted on these subjects were bought for her. From the very beginning, any information she could obtain concerning the Stone Age drew her like a magnet. She disliked dolls, adored animals, and preferred trees and flowers to the society of other children.

At eleven she began to write verses. A year later her family moved to Featherstone, a tiny bush township in the North Island, and here for five years she ran wild, riding unbroken colts, shooting, learning to swim in snow-fed creeks, and going for long, solitary rambles of explora- tion through the virgin bush. It was here in the thick scrub, where there was always the risk of encountering wild cattle or a wild boar, that what she describes as ''memories of the Stone Age" came to her. And so, when the newly-started 'Lone Hand" magazine startled Australasia by offering a prize of 25 pounds for the best short story submitted to it, Dulcie Deamer, then 16, sent along her first serious prose effort -- a story of the savage love of a cave-man.

It won -- and altered the whole course of her life.

For some years previously her parents had been training her for a stage career. This original idea was not abandoned. At 17 Dulcie Deamer was touring New Zealand with a little company playing melodrama in all the back-block townships. It was thus she met her future husband, Albert Goldie, who was at that time business manager for one of Williamson's companies.

A whirlwind courtship ended in a marriage in Perth, Western Australia -- the bride being not yet 18. Then came a tour of the Far East, with Hugh Ward's London Comedy Company, which her husband was then managing. Here all manner of adventures befell the young actress-authoress. A bomb was thrown into her carriage in the streets of Bombay, where anti-British rioting had broken out.

Luckily it failed to explode. She was caught in another riot in the Temple of Kali, in Calcutta, and only saved by the intervention of a Brahmin priest. A fat Bengalese millionaire, hung with necklaces of pearls the size of broad beans, nearly succeeded in trapping her into his harem, and in China she saw execution grounds littered with freshly severed heads.

These excitements provided material for
an Indian novel, which was published in New York, which city she visited when she was 21. In the meantime a book of her collected Stone Age stories had been published in Sydney, and three sons had been born to her.

In the following years she visited Lon
don, Paris, and Rome, and her family had increased to six. During a second visit to the United States she was involved in strike riots in the vicinity of Chicago, and had to run for her life from a couple of bayonet charges, when the military were called out, the strikers having turned the street cars loose under their own power, and started to wreck the suburb with torn up paving stones. Previously to this she had been booked to sail on the ill-fated Titanic, but had changed her plans at the last moment, and taken passage on the Olympic, sailing four day sooner. To gain experience on this voyage she travelled steerage with thirteen hundred imigrants from every European country.

She was again in America during the
Great War, and witnessed all the frenzies of Yankee excitement on Armistice Day.

Immediately after the war three of her
novels were published in London and New York-- "Revelation," "The Street of the Gazelle," and "The Devil's Saint." Her work is strongly coloured with imagination. "Revelation" and "The Street of the Gazelle" deal with Jerusalem in the time of Christ, "The Devil's Saint" is a mediaeval romance dealing with witch-craft and black magic.

Finally she returned to Sydney, which
she had for long regarded as "home." Here she settled down to journalism, but by no means had finished with adventures, one of which was a visit to the famous Homebush abattoirs, disguised as a man, for no woman is allowed to witness the actual killing.

During the last few years a de luxe
edition of her short stories ("As It Was in the Beginning") was published in Melbourne, with illustrations by Norman Lindsay, and a volume of her poems ("Messalina") has recently been brought out in Sydney. She has now turned her attention to play writing, her first play being produced last year. She hopes to contribute screen stories to the newly established Australian film industry. She has written a number of serials for Australian papers, and is now engaged in a new long novel, which will be published in Australia by the Endeavour Press towards the end of the year.

First published in The West Australian, 13 May 1933

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

Reprint: Australian Authors VI: "Banjo" Paterson by Aidan de Brune

If the Commonwealth Government were to appoint an Australian Poet Laureate there can be no doubt that the first holder of that high office would be Andrew Barton Paterson, known far and wide as "Banjo" Paterson. His name is a household word. More truly than any other of our numerous Australian poets, he has expressed the spirit of this land in verse.

"Banjo" Paterson, now nearing seventy years of age, is the undisputed Dean of Australian, poetry. His verses, since they first began to appear in the "Bulletin," fifty years ago, have been receited throughout the length and breadth of the land, in shearing sheds, at bush concerts, wherever two or three Australians have gathered around a camp fire. The rollicking rhythm of his ballads, the apt phrases, sometimes slangy, sometimes high poetry, have brought joy to hundreds of thousands of readers and listeners.

While poets of high-falutin "schools of thought" have piped in their thin and genteel voices to meagre audiences of bored listeners, this robust singer of the wide plains and monutains of the bush laud has "bestrode them like a Colossus." The people, with their true instinct to recognise what is sincere in art, have given "Banjo" Paterson the applause which only a major poet can command. Over 100,000 copies of "The Man from Snowy River" have been sold. Probably there is not a man, woman, or child in Australia who does not know at least some of Banjo Paterson's verse by heart.

Australia's Poet Laureate has had an interesting and varied career and a wide experience of both bush and city life. He was born in 1864 at Narrambla, Xew South Wales, and was educated at the Sydney Grammar School. He practised as a solicitor for fifteen years before deciding to take up journalism, when his verses were beginning to make him famous.

"The Man from Snowy River" was published in book form in 1895, and from that time his position as a national songster was assured.

He was editor of the "Evening News" for five years, and acted as correspondent of the London "Times" on sugar-growmg, pearl-diving, and Australian subjects generally. When the Boer war broke out, he went to South Africa as Reuter's correspondent.

On the outbreak of the Great War, in 1914, he volunteered for active service wilh the A.I.F. Though over military age, he was given the rank of major, joined the Remount Unit, and saw service in Egypt and Palestine.

He has travelled extensively outback, particularly in Central Australia and the Northern Territory, where be went buffalo shooting. In one of his verses he describes typical buffalo country:

   Out where the grey streams glide,
      Sullen and deep and slow,
   And the alligators slide
      From the mud to the depths below,
   Or drift on the stream like a floating death 
   Where the fever comes on the south wind's breath
      There is the buffalo..

In addition to "The Man from Snowy River" he has published "Rio Grande's Last Race," and "Saltbush Bill," besides a novel entitled "An Outback Marriage," and a humorous book entitled "Three Elephant Power." He has also edited a collection of "Old Bush Songs."

Now, after a silence of many years, he has ready a new book of poems, which will be published before Easter, by The Endeavour Press, with illustrations by Norman Lindsay. The most popular poet and the greatest illustrator in Australia will thus collaborate for the first time in the pages of a book, though it was Norman Lindsay who designed the original cover for "The Man from Snowy River."

The title of the new verses is "The Animals Noah Forgot." In a foreword the poet explains that the native bear refused to go in the Ark because Noah did not carry a stock of gum leaves-- and the platypus refused because he was afraid of being trodden on by the elephant!

Most of the poems deal in a humorous, but very understanding way, with the Australian bush animals.

The wombat, for example:

   The strongest creature for his size,
      But least equipped for combat,
   That dwells beneath Australian sides is Weary Will the Wombat.

The Platypus, who "descended from a family most exclusive":

   He talks in a deep unfriendly growl
      As he goes on his journey lonely;
   For he's no relation to fish nor fowl,  
   Nor to bird nor beast, nor to horned owl.
      In fact, he's the one and only!

The bandicoot, who "will come to look at a light, and scientists wonder, why":

   If the bush is burning it's time to scoot
   Is the notion of Benjaimn Bandicoot.

The flying squirrels:

   Never a care at all Bothers their simple brains;
      You can see them glide in the moonlight dim
   From tree to tree and from limb to limb.
      Little grey aeroplanes.

These few quotations show that none of the poet's old brilliance of phrase has been lost. Besides descriptions of the bush animals, there are poems on shearers, bullock drivers, cattle dogs, and a rattling good ballad of the Army Mules, which would be a credit to Rudyard Kipling, if that Dean of English Poets had rhymed it.

The multiude of admirers of Australia's national poet will welcome his "return to form." The young poets of the post-war generation might well study this book, and take a lesson from one of the "Old Hands" at the game of versifying. It is only by sheer hard work and a constant observation of men and nature that poetry euch as "Banjo" Paterson's, which looks so easy, is written.

My literary work? Well, about fifty to sixty serials, under various nom de plumes in London and New York -- some dozen of them only appearing in book form. Not until I had completed the walk around Australia, and had settled down in Sydney again, did I attempt to make use of my partiality for crooks and their works. My first story on these lines was "Dr. Night," published in the "World's News." Then followed "The Carson Loan Mystery" published by the N.S.W. Bookstall Company, Ltd., of Sydney. A little later the "Daily Guardian" (Sydney) ran "The Dagger and Cord" as a serial, and immediately it ended in the newspaper Messrs. Angus and Robertson, Ltd., published it in book form. Then, in the columns of the "Daily Guardian" followed "Fingerprints of Fate" (published by Angus and Robertson, Ltd., under the title of "The Shadow Crook"), and "The Little Grey Woman." Since then I have devoted myself more particularly to serial writing, under my own name and nom de plumes, totalling in all fourteen stories. My amusements? Two absorbing ones. Writing mystery stories and entreating federal politicians to foster a national Australian literature. The first easy -- the other apparently very difficult.

First published in The West Australian, 6 May 1933

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

Note: The last paragraph of this essay is a strange one: why did de Brune think it necessary to include his own literary bibliography?  As a means of implyig he knew what he was talking about?  Given that he had a partial biography published the previous week in this same series of articles, you'd have to think that he had a certain number of words to fill about Peterson and ran a tad short.

Reprint: Australian Authors V: Aidan de Brune

(Related in an interview.)

Fifty-four years is a long way to look back upon, to a little village some few miles outside Montreal where, I am informed, I was born. I have little knowledge of the event, and but little more of the long trek to Zululand, where my father escorted his family when I reached the age of four years. More distinctly, I remember my Zulu playfellows, and the long, long trek to Cape Town, where I was sent to school, at the age of nine.

A family council, when I reached my fourteenth birthday, decided that I would be an ornament to the priesthood, and I departed for London, en route for Maynooth. At that time England, and the United States of America, were awakening to the new jouralism, under the respective guidances of Harmsworth and Hearst. I was attracted, and a great longing to tread the inky way possessed me. In consequence, I stayed in London, completing a sketchy education at night schools, and haunting the newspaper offices of the city by day. To my gratification -- and the surprise of many of the major journalists of that period -- I found within a few months that I could earn bread at it, with, an occasional flavouring of cheese and jam.

Short story writing had long attracted me -- my first fiction story had appeared in a Cape Town newspaper before I reached eleven. In London I found corners in magazines and journals open to my efforts, and this editorial encouragement had disastrous effects on my future; I determined to be an author. I started a magnum opus and -- to buy paper and ink -- cultivated sensational love-story writing in periodicals of the Family Herald Supplement type.

On the outbreak of the Boer War I found I had sufficient money in the bank to pay my fare home -- to South Africa. A fight has always attracted me, and amid the wide-spread battleground of South Africa I found adventure sufficient for an ordinary lifetime. I returned to London with a 100,000 words novel on the war, but publishers are always unkind, ever those of the present century.

My arrival in London was only the jumping-off place. The United States of America was an alluring vision on the horizon -- and I strode for the foot of the rainbow. I landed in New York with exactly nineteen shillings and three-pence in my pocket; a great belief in my own powers; and a store of imagination that won me past the very lax immigration laws of that period.

Followed a period of wandering up and down a country then in the making, and almost as big as Australia. I worked at anything that came to hand, and when work failed to materialise, I was the perfect hobo. Even to-day I remember what particularly hard boot-leather was provided for the train-guards.

And all this time I was writing stories and articles -- and all the time editors and publishers were filling the U.S. mails with my returns. By the time I had reached twenty-five I claimed to have the largest and most varied collection of 'The Editor regrets . ..." in the known world.

Still, I would write. Chance gave me the opportunity to practice journalism, and for a time I walked the streets of big cities, a full-blown reporter. Again the wide spaces called -- I think it was a minor revolution in Panama. Anyway, I went south, to see Spanish America. Some hundreds of days of wild adventures -- the night spent in scribbling; and I awoke to the fact that some thousands of dollars had accumulated in New York to my credit.

I was a capitalist!  Naturally, my first thought was to see the world -- up to then I had only partially surveyed Canada, South Africa, England and the United States. The Orient called, but I had no intention of wasting money on fares. In Frisco a friendly master-mariner offered to ship me before the mast of a befouled, much-wandered cargo boat -- and I jumped his offer before he had time to get sober. Then I learned something of the Pacific, as a sailing-pond, and a good deal of the many and varied nationalities it contains. While at Singapore I said good-bye to the vessel, but forgot to take farewell of the captain. He didn't trouble to find me -- I suppose because I had forgotten to collect wages owing me.

Deciding to explore China, by good luck I came into the graces of a high official of the Empire. With him I visited large tracts of that country then unknown to white men. Back to the United States, my head filled with facts and fictions, determined to settle down and become a respectable member of society.

By the time I reached New York again I had less than a dollar in my pocket. Two days spent in examining and approv- ing the alterations made in the city during my absence, and I bethought myself of the treasury -- and the hotel bill that was steadily mounting. Full of thought, I wandered down to the doors of a well-known publishing house -- and hesitated. What had I for sale?  It took more than two hours, pacing the block, to frame a satisfactory plot for a serial. Then I chose an editor -- and bearded him in his lair. How I put it over, I don't know; but I do know that I came out of that building with a commission to write a fiction serial then only existing in my mind -- and what was more to the point, with half-payment for the story in my pocket. That story was written in thirteen days -- I'm always fond of 'unlucky thirteen' -- and I was up 250 dollars. Then and there, on a busy side walk, during the busiest hour of the day, I elected myself a serial writer for the great United States of America -- and up to a certain point I made good on my self election.

Through all the earlier days of my life I had been fascinated by crooks -- although at that time I was not using them as material for stories. Opportunity offering, I obtained a place on a newspaper, developing a flair for crime investigation (of the newspaper kind). Now followed some years of peace, my days being devoted to journalism and my nights to fiction writing. Just about the time my banker recognised my entry to his establishment with a welcoming smile, I broke down in health.

Eighteen months of neurasthenia -- more than half that time helpless on a bed. American doctors sent me to England. There the fraternity declared me a hopeless case. Perhaps to get me off their hands with the least trouble, they decided that my only hope was a voyage to Australia. Hospital attendants carried me on board ship, but at Port Said I walked ashore to see the sights. By the time I reached Fremantle, I had decided there was still room in this world for me. I looked at the western capital, and decided that the country was good; also that doctors were bad guessers.

The wander lust urged again, and for quite a time I travelled most of the southern parts of the continent. Then came the war, and I joined in the Great Adventure.  Again back to Australia, with an earnest desire to see those parts of it I had previously missed. At that time certain gentlemen were forming the Sydney 'Daily Mail.' One day I wandered into Mr. Gay's offices, and announced that I proposed to walk around Australia, and would he pay for articles on the trip? Mr. Gay was blunt. First he told me exactly how many kinds of fool I was to think of such a trip; then came to an agreement with business-like promptitude. Within a few hours I had gathered together what I thought necessary for an 11,000 miles trip, and had left Sydney. Two and a half years later I came to Sydney again, having in the mean time visited nearly every port on the extensive coastliue. More to the point, I had proved possible a trip quite a number of Sydney wise-heads had declared to be sheer suicide.

First published in The West Australian, 29 April 1933

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

Reprint: Mark Twain's Poem

Mark Twain has been moved to write a poem on Australia. In a lecture the other night he said:-" I have a poem. I have written a poem only once in 30 years. I have now written one of four stanzas, and when I had the inspiration I knew it was time. I always have an inspiration to write a poem -- once every 30 years. I felt that sort of feeling the night I landed here. The time was up. The inspiration was ripe. If I am going to write a book about this trip round the world, why a book of such a character ought to have some poetry in it. I felt that. So I was looking round tor a subject. First I thought of Sydney Harbour, but then I thought maybe somebody has attended to it. Then I thought that would be rather large for me -- rather above my poetical stature. Then I thought of the fauna of Australia -- the remarkable examples that exist here and don't exist anywhere else in the world. They have been written about and written about in prose, but they ought to be written in poetry. I thought that would be a very good scheme. I made a list of them and began."

There seems to have been some difficulty. Twain continued:- "I began on one, on the-poem. I have not got the list complete yet. I have got down a lot. I have got emu, kangaroo, jackass, or laughing jackass, and the bell bird, and so on. I have a lot of those, and then I have a list also of the extinct ones-the wonderful extinct ones like the dodo, the boomerang, and the great moa, and the larrikin. I can say now that the most difficult thing in the world to do is to write poetry when you don't know how. You see it is the rhymes that make the trouble, for if you get the sense right, why then there is no word that will rhyme with it. If your rhymes rhyme then there is no sense in it.

      "Land of the ornithorhynchus." 

That's a pretty one -- it is rhythmical and graceful. If I had a child I would name it after it.

      "Land of the ornithorhynchus,
         Land of the kangaroo,
      Old ties of heredity link us." 

But the thing would not work out.  The humourist said: "And there you are. You see I am right against a dead wall. You can see there is nothing in the world that will rhyme with ornithorhynchus. Kangaroo? Nothing rhymes with kangaroo. Of course, you can slyly let it off without rhyme, but it would fail. I gave that up. I'll let it out by contract. I thought I would offer a prize for it -- chromos, or something like that. I started another way:

      "Land of the fur-tailed rabbit,
      Land of the boomerang."

There it is the same thing. You can't find a rhyme for rabbit and another rhyme for boomerang. Boomerang don't rhyme with anything but boomerang. I saw the difficulty. You must start on a simple basis

      "Come forth from thy oozy couch,
      Oh ornithorhynchus dear,
      And great with cordial cheer
      The stranger that longs to hear
From thy own, own lips the 'tail' of thy origin all unknown,
Thy misplaced bone where flesh should be, and flesh where should be bone."

The Sydney Star could get no more of the poem, for the audience would not stop laughing.

First published in The Mercury, 2 November 1895

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

Reprint: 40 Years of Blurb by L. T. Sardone

Sometime during 1913, Gelett Burgess, U.S author and illustrator, coined the word "blurb" to describe a short commendatory notice of a book. Eleven years later the word was admitted to the "Oxford English Dictionary."

The origin of the term is hard to trace, but the slang expert, Eric Partridge, is inclined to the view that it may be a corrupted combination of "splurge" and "blah.'

Whatever its origin, the fact remains that the blurb, plus its closest associate, the book jacket, has become a major selling medium in contemporary literature.

The dust-jacket idea seems to have originated with London booksellers somewhere about 1833, but it was not until the 1890s that Australian publishers began using detachable book jackets, on the back of which were advertised other publications.

One such volume was a book of Paterson's, "The Man from (Snowy River and Other Verses," published in 1895 by Angus and Robertson. The brown jacket shows a sketch of The Man himself astride his horse, drawn by Frank P. Mahony.  

Although from then on an increasing number of Australian books carried dust-jackets, the development in this country was gradual. World War I was a major obstacle to progress.

In the early 1920s, American publishers began to pay special attention to dust-jackets, buying the work of leading artists and finding a standard place for the blurb on the inside flap.

The work of U.S. artist designer McKnight Kauffer was particularly in demand.

Kauffer appears to have been largely responsible for the growth of the dust-jacket collecting craze. For several years during the 1920s people in Australia and other countries bought books, primarily (and sometimes exclusively) with the idea of mounting the jackets in albums.

The trend of the Australian jacket closely followed the English tradition for many years, for local publishers rarely felt inclined to risk cash on elaborate jacket blocks.

However, with Australia's ever increasing interest in reading, particularly since World War II Australian publishers have begun to pay closer attention to jackets, striving -- in the case of novels -- for a happy medium between the more conservative English design and the rather sensational accent of some American houses.

Now, it is not unusual for an Australian publication to carry a varnished four-colour jacket with half-tone photograph, attractive lettering and surrounds. Blocks for such a jacket, at the present time, cost about £100 each.

Among the earliest artists associated with Australian book-jackets were Frank Mahony -- best remembered for his work on Lawson's "While The Billy Boils," Paterson's verse, and Ethel Pedley's "Dot And The Kangaroo" -- and George Lambert, who did a fine illustration for Ogilvie's "Fair Girls And Grey Horses," in 1902.

Norman Lindsay, of course, did the jacket for his well-known classic, "The. Magic Pudding," and he, with Percy Leason, did jacketing and covers for Lawson's works. Hal Gye did jackets for the works of C. J. Dennis, among which were "Glugs of Gosh," "The Sentimental Bloke," "Ginger Mick," and, in association with David Low (now of the "Manchester Guardian"), "The Bloke And Doreen."

Edgar A. Holloway did considerable jacketing here during the 1920s and 1930s, and more recently the work of Francis Broadhurst, William Constable, Adrian Feint and Virgil Reilly is note-worthy.

With no other form of literature is the jacket of more importance than in connection with children's books. Nowhere, either, is it more essential that author, illustrator and publisher work in close co-operation.

Here the book-jacket really comes into its own, for a child's first impression is rated highly, and the cover will be seen before the book's contents.    

Illustrators responsible for the jackets of some best-selling Australian juveniles are Rhys Williams ("Verity, of Sydney Town") and Pixie O'Harris ("Pixie O'Harris's Fairy Tales''). The   aboriginal jacket illustrations of Elizabeth Durack, "The Magic Trumpet" and others, have also been well received.

Worthy of special mention, too, are the jackets executed by Margaret Senior, Walter Cunningham and John Singleton in a nature series published by John Sands. One of these, "The Story of Karrawingi the Emu," by Leslie Rees, and an historical cavalcade, "The Australia Book," by Eve Pownall, won Australian Book Society prizes in their respective years of publication.

However, Australian book jacketing (and, for that matter, blurb-writing) has not been notable for its overall excellence. Many garish and shoddy productions have found their way into our bookshops.

They have lent point to the claim of some book collectors that dust-jackets are an irrelevancy, which could well be sacrificed so that books could be sold more cheaply.  

But the standard has been steadily improved in recent years.

Although no great attention might be given to an exhibition of Australian bookjackets, there seems no reason why one should not be attempted.

An annual exhibition of book jackets has been sponsored by the Book Jacket Designers' Guild, Inc., in America, since 1948. For some years past, too, the American Institute of Graphic Arts has helped to improve U.S. standards of jacketing by holding exhibitions in New York City titled "Fifty Best Book Jackets of the Year."

Something along these lines might go a long way towards stimulating interest in book jacket illustration and design here-with improvements in the standards of both.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 September 1953

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

Reprint: Australian Authors IV: Miles Franklin by Aidan de Brune

Thirty years ago literary circles in Australia were astounded by the publication of an extraordinary book, written by a girl of sixteen, Stella Miles Franklin. The title of the book was audacious -- "My Brilliant Career." The "brilliant career" of a girl of sixteen might have meant any thing -- a reading of the book itself shows that it meant a great deal. The story is in the form, partly, of fiction, and partly of autobiography, and it bears on every page the imprint of sheer genius. It throbs with a passionate love of the Australian bush, and particularly of horses, and with an equal passionate hatred of the cruelties of life endured by the people on the land, particularly by the women. It is the first statement, and to this day it remains the greatest statement, of the case for Australian bush womanhood.

In a preface to the book Henry Lawson said:-- "The description of bush life and scenery came startlingly, painfully real to me; and I know that, as far as they are concerned, the book is true to Australia -- the truest I ever read. She has lived her book, and I feel proud of it for the sake of the country I came from, where people toil and bake and suffer, and are kind."

The youthful author herself says in her introduction: -- "This is not a romance. I have too often faced the music of life to the tune of hardship to waste time in snivelling and gushing over fancies and dreams. .... Do not fear encountering such trash as descriptions of beautiful sunsets and whisperings of wind. We (999 out of every 1,000) can see naught in sunsets save as signs and tokens whether we may expect rain on the morrow. There is no plot in the story, because there has been none in my life, or in any other life which has come under my notice."

But the last chapter swells to a magnificent paean of youth's brave challenge to the world: -- "I am proud that I am an Australian, a daughter of the Southern Cross, a child of the mighty bush. I am thankful I am a peasant, a part of the bone and muscle of my nation, and earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, as man was meant to do.    

"Ah! my sunburnt brothers -- sons of toils and of Australia -- I love and respect you well, for you are brave and good and true. I have seen not only those of you with youth and hope strong in your veins, but those with pathetic streaks of grey in your hair, large families to support, and with half a century sitting upon your work-laden shoulders. I have seen you struggle uncomplainingly against flood, fire, disease in stock, pests, drought, trade depression, and sickness, and yet have time to extend your hands and hearts in true sympathy to a brother, in misfortune, and spirits to laugh and joke and be cheerful.  

''And for my sisters a great love and pity fills my heart. Daughters of toil, who scrub and wash and mend and cook, who are dressmakers, paperhangers, milk-maids, gardeners, and candle-makers all in one, and yet have time to be cheerful and tasty in your homes, and make the best of the few cases to be found along the dusty track of your existence. Would that I were more worthy to be one of you --- more a typical Australian peasant -- cheerful, honest, brave!      

"I love you. I love you. Bravely you jog along with the rope of class distinction drawing closer, closer, tighter, tighter around you. A few more generations, and you will be enslaved as were ever the moujiks of Russia. I see it, and know it, but I cannot help you. My ineffective life will be trod out in the same ground of toil. I am only one of yourselves, I am only an unnecessary, little bush commoner. I am only a -- woman!

"The great, sun is sinking in the west, grinning, and winking knowingly as he goes, upon the starving stock and drought smitten wastes of land. Nearer he draws to the gum-tree, scrubby horizon, turns the clouds to orange, scarlet, silver, flame, gold!  Down, down he goes. The gorgeous, garnish splendour of sunset pageantry flames out; the long shadows eagerly cover all; the kookaburras laugh their merry mocking good-night; the clouds fade to turquoise, green, and grey; the stars peep shyly out; the soft call of the moke-poke arises in the gullies! With much love and good wishes to all -- Good-night!  Goodbye!  Amen!"  

The MS. of "My Brilliant Career" was taken to England by Earl Beauchamp, then Governor of New South Wales, and it was published by Blackwood, of Edinburgh. Like many another fine Australian book it has been allowed to go out of print, and copies are now quite unobtainable. Perhaps it will be re-issued by one of our Australian publishing houses soon. Meanwhile, what happened to Miles Franklin? She went abroad, and has been lost to Australia for more than twenty years. She threw herself into organising work for the Feminist Movement in the United States of America, wrote thousands of newspaper and magazine articles, and made speeches in every State of the Union. When the war broke out she went to Salonika with the Scottish Women's Hospital. After the war she had a most responsible position as secretary of the housing committee in London. In all these years of great organising achievement she   was definitely lost to Australian life and letters.  

Now she has returned to her native land. A year ago a book appeared, "Old Blastus of Bandicoot," under her name. The book is modestly described as an ''opuscule," but all the old fire and dash is there. John Dalley, in the Sydney "Bulletin," sums up what many other critics have said about this book: "The characterisation's the thing. Nothing so good has been done in any previous novel about the Australian bush."

This year the Endeavour Press will print and publish in Australia a sprightly detective story by Miles Franklin, entitled "Bring the Monkey!"-- modestly described as a "light novel." Is that, then, the whole story of Miles Franklin? We shall see. Is it likely, or possible, that a writer of such power and sheer genius as the author of "My Brilliant Career" should have been silent for more than twenty years?

Miles Franklin will not admit it, but whether she likes it or not people are identifying her with the mysterious "Brent of Bin Bin," whose books (published by Blackwood, of Edinburgh, be it noted) are acknowledegd to be the finest presentation in fiction of the Australian outback epic which have yet been written. "Brent of Bin Bin" loves the bush and understands horses, and hates injustice to bush women, as only the author of "My Brilliant Career" and "Old Blastus of Bandicoot" could love, and understand, and hate.

The "Brent of Bin Bin" triology ("Up the Country," "Ten Creeks Run," "Back to Bool Bool") are already Australian classics. Despite the fact that they are difficult to obtain, as are most Australian books published overseas, they have gone into numerous editions, and are hailed by a multitude of discerning readers as being absolute portents for the future of the Australian novel -- a real and true portrait, not a caricature, of outback life.

If Miles Franklin is also "Brent of Bin Bin," then she is the greatest Australian bush novelist alive. And if she is only Miles Franklin of "My Brilliant Career" and "Old Blastus of Bandicoot" she takes second place to one writer alone -- the tremendously gifted and mysterious author who writes in Miles Franklin's manner under the pseudonym of "Brent."

First published in The West Australian, 22 April 1933

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

Reprint: To the Editor of the Argus: Norman Lindsay

Sir - Mr. Norman Lindsay, whom so many of us admire in spite of himself, does ill-service to the memory of the late Dame Nellie Melba by repeating a remark probably made by the great singer in a moment of passing exasperation. If any Australian citizen was ever consistently loyal to Australia it was Melba. She loved the people of this country, and she was as proud of this land of her birth as she was of her career. That Melba deplored certain aspects of Australian life as much as does Mr. Norman Lindsay is perfectly true. She, too, longed to find her fellow-countrymen genuinely interested in the things that are ultimately of more importance than a football final. Australia, as a whole, has not yet learned to look upon her painters, poets and musicians as individuals of essentail value to her development as a nation, a fact of which Melba was sadly aware. She was not the only one who has given utterance to an opinion delivered more in sorrow than in anger; nevertheless she not only truly loved her fellow-countrymen, but also believed firmly in their artistic destiny. -

Yours, &c.,

FRITZ HART.

East Melbourne, Nov. 30.

First published in The Argus, 1 December 1931

Reprint: Australian Authors III: Bernard Cronin by Aidan de Brune

Bernard Cronin, president of the Society of Australian Authors, is one of those stalwart "professional" writers whose books command a world sale; but unlike some of the other Australian authors of this class, he has not gone abroad to live and work in exile, away from the source of his inspiration.

He accepts the challenge which the Australian bush offers to writers of major fiction.

"The writer in the Old Country," he has stated, "finds his scenery, as it were, ready made for him. In this country it is definitely not to be found upon the surface of things. One has to dig deeply to become aware of the very great natural beauties of the Australian landscape. Real treasure is mostly of the buried variety. To my mind there is more character in an old Aussie gum tree than in any other tree I ever heard of. Incidentally, I should say that that much abused genius, D. H. Lawrence, came closer to an understanding of the spirit of the Australian landscape than any other writer, local, or imported, has yet done. He is the first scribe definitely to sight the real genii of the bush."    

We may take this to mean that Bernard Cronin is intrigued by Australia as a literary theme, but he does not "sentimentalise" his subject.

"Our trouble is that we lack real breeding, and crudeness is a poor scaffold for the Arts. Further, the indifference of our rulers to the absolute need to develop a national soul has not made matters any better. Hansard will never make this country aware of the sublimities of human destiny. We need to see Australia from her own standpoint, and with her own individuality. The Arts are our only hope of salvation."

By this last phrase our fierce realist is revealed as an idealist, after all. The title of his new book, "The Sow's Ear," which will be published this year in Australia, shows that the author is concerned with making something fine from our "crude" material. The story is set in the Tasmanian timber country, in the days before the war. It is a ruthless exposure of the tragic life of young girls enslaved by the system of marrying without love, at the command of domineering parents. The heroine longs for something better, but must accept her fate. In her passionate desire to escape from the bondage of the bush, she works to win for her two little daughters the chance in life which was so bitterly denied to herself.

Bernard Cronin's novels all have this "fierce'" quality. He has aimed at exposing what he considers to be wrong, stupid or uneconomic. In this sense he is the strongest of the Australian writers who wish to make us aware of our short comings, so that we may eliminate them, and become a truly civilised nation.

He is fully equipped for the literary task which he has set himself. He came to Australia forty years ago, at the age of six years, in charge of the captain of the old Orient steamer Austral. On the way out he nearly killed an able seaman, who was painting the ship's side, holding to the deck with one hand. Young Cronin jumped with both feet on the sailor's hand, "just to see what would happen." The sailor let go, but was providentially rescued.      

Perhaps it was this impish spirit of curiosity that eventually led Cronin to become a writer, and to jump, figuratively, upon the fingers of his Australian readers. "I am not really pugnacious," he says, "but I resent with violence anything that strikes me as being cheap." He tells us that he began to write as soon as he learned that a pencil may be sharpened by biting it.

He decided to become a farmer, and entered the Dookie Agricultural College. In 1901 he was dux of the college and gold medallist. He then had jackeroo experience on Kewita Station, South Gippsland, and Ulupna Station, in the north-east of Victoria, before taking up cattle farming on the north-west coast of Tasmania, where he remained for ten years. His experience there has provided him with material for nearly a dozen novels and serials, and innumerable short stories.

He has published the following novels: "The Coastlanders," 1918; "Timber Wolves," 1920; "Bluff Stakes," 1922; "Salvage," 1923; "Red Dawson," 1927; "White Gold," 1927; "The Treasure of the Tropics," 1928; "Dragonfly," 1928; "Toad," 1929; "Bracken," 1931; and, in conjunction with Arthur Russell, "Bushranging Silhouettes," 1932. Six of these novels have been issued by London publishers in cheap editions -- a sure proof of their popularity.

Now living in Melbourne, Bernard Cro nin has revealed the humanitarian impulse which lies below his "fierceness" by his work for the Derelict Society, which he founded in conjunction with Gertrude Hart. He is also the founder of the Society of Australian Authors, and has shown a very great zeal in striving to remove the handicaps under which our writers have to work. "There is much to discourage the Australian writer," he says. "Nevertheless, he holds steadily to his job. He hopes that the pioneering work which he is doing will prove an invaluable foundation for the generation of writers to come. Give him the support of his own Government and public, and he will win to wider distinction inside a decade. But he'll win through, anyway."  

When Australian authors have finally won recognition from their own people, the name of Bernard Cronin will stand high in the roll of honour of those who have fought for this objective.

First published in The West Australian, 15 April 1933

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

Note: interesting last paragraph.  I'd tend to say that Bernard Cronin has been largely foregotten.

Reprint: Australian Authors: Work of the New Society

The Society of Australian Authors, which has now a membership of 87, is the outcome of a meeting on January 28, 1928, of the Derelicts Club, founded in Melbourne in 1920 by Gertrude Hart and Bernard Cronin. It was resolved that the Derelicts Club be re-named the Society of Australian Authors, those present to form the basis society. The membership was then 32, and a club symbol, designed by Will Dyson, was adopted. The president elected was Bernard Cronin, vice-presidents Gertrude Hart and Louis Lavater, and secretary Arthur Goode.

In July the society conducted an essay competition for young Australians on the subject of an Australian work of fiction, the prizes totalling £19. Over 100 entries were received, and the winning essays, on publication, won favorable comment. A similar competition will probably be held yearly.    

At the suggestion of the society, the Booksellers' Association of Victoria agreed to introduce where possible as permanent features of the trade, two innovations--an all-Australian counter and the issue of an Australian catalogue, which, it is expected, will be generally adopted shortly. During the year the society gave all the assistance it could to Sir John Quick in the compiling of like Selective Bibliography, on vhich he is at present engaged. Applications for advice were received from a large number of young writers, and in every case a helpful reply was sent, as it is felt that by these means the society is fulfilling one of its main functions.

Among the members of the society are Mr. F. Anstey, M.H.R., Charles Barrett, Judge Beeby, E. J. Brady, Mary Grant Bruce, Bernard Cronin, Elsie Cole, Erie Cox, G. Cockerell. C. J. Dennis, Louis Esson. Sir Robert Garran, Mrs. Aeneas Gunn, Gertrude Hart, Marion Miller Knowles, Louis Lavater, Myra Morris, Marie Pitt, Alec Pratt, Sir John Quick, J. M. Walsh, and Blamire Young. The South Australian members are Fred Mills (Twinkler") and William J. MacDonald.

The main objects of the society are to join in common cause persons actively engaged in the promotion of Australian letters; to advance the literary interests of its members, both in Australia and overseas; and to provide an authoritative literary centre to which visiting men of letters may apply when desirous of being informed as to Australian writers and Australian literary effort.

First published in The Advertiser, 15 November 1928

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

Reprint: Drunkenness and Poetry

BENDIGO, Wednesday - A married man named James Dennis Meehan was, at the Bendigo City Court today charged with having been found in an intoxicated condition on the licensed premises of the Kimberly Hotel on May 11. Mr. E. W. Kirby, who appeared for the defendant said that his client was not in a drunken state within the meaning of the act; he was merely recovering from the effects of drink, and had delirium tremens. In a New Zealand case the distinction had been drawn that a man was not in a state of intoxication unless he had lost the normal control of his bodily and mental faculties.

Mr. R. B. Anderson, J.P., who presided on the bench, gave the following definition of drunkenness -

"He is not drunk who on the floor,
Can drink, and ask for more.
But drunk is he, who prostrate lies,
Upon the floor, and cannot rise."

(Laughter.) The man had been arrested at the instance of his wife, and her object had been served. The defendant would be discharged.

Meehan promised to go straight away and sign the pledge. Mr. Anderson advised him "not to go to the nearest pub and wet it."  

(Laughter.)

First published in The Argus, 14 May 1908

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

Reprint: Australian Authors II: Louis Stone by Aidan de Brune

Louis Stone, the author of "Jonah," and "Betty Wayside," is one of the most remarkable of Australian authors. His books, published in England, were allowed to go out of print during the War, and are now almost unobtainable. Second-hand copies of ''Jonah" have been sold for as much as £2/10/ each. Competent critics declare that this book is a worthy successor to "Robbery Under Arms" and "For the Term of His Natural Life" amongst Australian novels that can properly be called "classic."

''With one book," declared A. G. Stephens, when "Jonah" was first published, "Mr. Stone has put himself in the front rank of Australian authorship." Mr. John Galsworthy wrote- "I have lapped up your novel, which I consider extraordinarily actual, vivid, and good."

With such praise it is difficult to understand why Mr. Stone's book was ever allowed to go out of print. Australian authors have certainly had small encouragement from their own countrymen in the past. The new edition of "Jonah," which is to be published this year by The Endeavour Press in Sydney, will make tardy amends to Mr. Stone for twenty years' neglect of his masterpiece.

What is it that makes "Jonah" a really great book? Norman Lindsay perhaps supplied the answer when he wrote: "Louis Stone's streets and people are instantly vitalised and known at a glance." Let us take an example of his descriptive power. It is the reader's introduction to Mrs. Yabsley, the mountainous washer woman pilosopher:- "Cardigan Street was proud of her. Her eyes twinkled in a big, humorous face; her arm was like a leg of mutton; the floors creaked beneath her as she walked. She laughed as a bull roars; her face turned purple; she fought for air; the veins rose like cords on her forehead. She was pointed out to strangers like a public building as she sat gossiping with her neighbours in a voice that shook the windows. Her sayings were quoted like the newspapers. Fraymen laughed at her jokes."        

Note with what artistry the novelist has built up a complete picture in simple words. We note the same forceful quality in the description of Jonah himself, the larrikin hunchback, with his "large head, wedged between the shoulders as if a giant's hand had pushed it down, the masterful nose, the keen grey eyes, and the cynical lips."    

Jonah is truly an unforgettable character. Born in the squalor and cruelty of slum life, he becomes leader of the "Push," and dictator of its fierce laws. One of the most terrifying passages in all literaure is the description of the Push "dealing out stouch" to a victim: 'The Push opened out, and the man, sobered by danger, stood for a moment with bewildered eyes. Then, with the instinct of the hunted, he turned for home and ran. The Push gave chase. Again and again the quarry turned, blindly seeking refuge in the darkest lanes. As his pursuers gained on him he gave a hoarse scream -- the dolorous cry of a hunted animal. But it was the cat playing with the mouse. The bricklayer ran like a cow, his joints stiffened by years of toil; the larrikins, light on their feet as hares, kept the pace with a nimble trot, silent and dangerous, conscious of nothing but the desire and power to kill."        

From this fierce and savage environment Jonah escapes, thanks to Mrs. Yabsley's motherly humorous advice and the influence of his own baby son, by Mrs. Yabsley's daughter, Ada. When Jonah first sees the baby, "flesh of his flesh; bone of his bone," "He remembered his deformity, and with a sudden catch in his breath, lifted the child from its cradle and felt its back, a passionate fear in his. heart. It was straight as a die . . ."Sool 'im!" he cried at last, and poked his son in the ribs."                    

From that moment his regeneration begins. "'e's the only relation I've got in the world; 'e's the only livin' creature that looks at me without seein' my hump," says Jonah to Mrs. Yabsley. The story of his victory over sordid surroundings, and of how the larrikin and wastrel wins   through to self-respect is told throughout with the sureness of touch and gift for observation that only great novelists possess.

Louis Stone, a quiet-speaking and cultivated man, is now living in retirement at Randwick. He was born in Leicester, and came to Australia as a child. He is a graduate of Sydney University, and was a schoolmaster for many years. His favourite authors are Flaubert and Virgil. He has a keen appreciation of classical music, of which he is an accomplished critic. With these scholarly interests it is all the more remarkable that the theme of his magnum opus should have been the lowest life of Sydney's slum streets, but to the humanist all life is interesting and this perhaps explains why Mr. Stone turned to a subject which most writers would have found unattractive, or too difficult. It is well that he did so.

The larrikin pushes of Sydney, have almost entirely disappeared. But in one great book that interesting phase of Australian evolution has been put on record for all time.

First published in The West Australian, 8 April 1933

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

Reprint: C. J. Dennis in War Time by Dora Wilcox

| No TrackBacks

In the British military hospital, which, with its 2,000 beds, and its quarters for M.D.'s, sisters, and orderlies, housed the population of a small town, came many sick and wounded Dominions men.

A Maori might be seen there, lying between a South African and a French-Canadian, and by December, 1916, the English nurses had begun to realise that Australians belonged, mentally and physically, to a race apart.

When, in that month, the V.A.D. went on duty in Ward H5, she was surprised to see the man from Monaro deep in a book, for never before had he shown any interest in literature.

"What is it? Is it good?" she asked.

"Bonzer!" he answered, handing it over. She was still more surprised to find that it was a volume of verse. It was, in fact, the first copy of "The Sentimental Bloke" that she had seen.

It went the round of the ward. All the Australians read it, all the New Zealanders, and many of the British Tommies; pages from it became incorporated in the general talk.

"You're looking down on your luck this morning," someone would say, and the Digger would reply:

"Too right. Sister. Me flamin' spirit 'as the flamon' 'ump!"

When the war was over, and the V.A.D. carne to Australia, she met C. J. Dennis at a luncheon party in Melbourne. Remembering those past days in the hospital, she looked at him with reverence. Was he, she wondered, the herald of a new form of Australian poetry -- a poetry which should be "understanded of the people," and give delight to simple and unlearned men?

She wonders still . . .

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 July 1938

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

Reprint: Australian Authors: Norman Lindsay by Aidan de Brune

Norman Lindsay, artist, philosopher, and novelist, is an Australian phenomenon. His fame is world-wide. Like Nellie Melba, he has surprised the world with the possession of a rare gift, and shown that genius can be native to this land of empty spaces and a small population. Norman Lindsay is acknowledged to be the greatest living illustrator in black-and-white, and one of the finest craftsmen with the pen who has ever lived. Even those who dislike the nude in art, which Norman Lindsay lavishly displays, are compelled to acknowledge the incomparable dexterity and technical excellence of his work.

He is many-sided. In his serious work as an artist he has proved himself a master of oil-painting, water-colour, etching, wood engraving and dry-point. His pen and ink illustrations to the sumptuous editions of Greek and Roman classics which have been published in London are sought by collectors of rare books throughout the world. In the spacious gardens of his home at Springwood, in the Blue Mountains, there are dozens of life-size sculptures which he has modelled. In his studio there are numerous models of sailing-ships in full rig, among them the clipper Thermopylae and an Elizabethan warship, which experts consider to be perfect in every detail. His model of Captain Cook's Endeavour is preserved in the Melbourne Museum. For twenty years he was principal cartoonist on the Sydney 'Bulletin' and he still contributes occasional humorous drawings and cartoons to that journal. He is a brilliant conversationalist and charming host. His home at Springwood has been a place of pilgrimage for many celebrated people, such as Anna Pavlova, Fritz Kreisler and Melba, who have been eager to pay their respects to an Australian who has proved his claim to the title of genius.

Norman Lindsay is the author of a number of books. "The Magic Pudding", a humorous tale for children, written and illustrated by him, is an Australian "best- seller." It was published by Angus and Robertson, Ltd. "A Curate in Bohemia," published by the N.S.W. Bookstall Co., Ltd: was written many years ago. It deals with the humorous aspect of life amongst the artists in Melbourne, in the 'nineties. More than 50,000 copies have been sold. Turning to more serious themes, in "Creative Effort," published in London, in 1924, Norman Lindsay expounded the philosophical basis of artistic endeavour. A philosophical novel, in dialogue, "Madame Life's Lovers," published in London, in 1929, gave further expression to the serious side of his thoughts.        

Leaving the artistic theme, he described in "Redheap," published in London and New York, in 1930, the humorous aspects of family life in an Australian mining town of forty years ago. Exception was taken to the book by the Australian Customs officials, who ordered the return of 10,000 copies to London. "Redheap" has now been turned into a play by Floyd Dell, the celebrated American dramatist, and is to be produced in New York this year. When "Redheap" was banned, Norman Lindsay left Australia, declaring that a country which consistently neglected its authors or treated them shabbily was not a properly civilised place. He travelled through America and England, and incidentally arranged for the publication of more of his novels. Two of these, "Mr. Gresham on Olympus" and "The Cautious Amorist," have recently been issued in both London and New York. Although not banned; it is difficult to obtain them in Australia, owing to the curtailment of book importing by adverse exchange rates and prevailing economic conditions.    

In London, Norman Lindsay persuaded Mr. P. R. Stephensen, a Queensland Rhodes Scholar with practical experience in book publishing in England, to undertake the organisation of an Australian Book Publishing Company, to encourage the work of our local authors. On Mr. Stephensen's arrival in Australia four months ago, the Bulletin Newspaper Company agreed to place its organisation and resources at the disposal of the new firm, of which both Mr. Lindsay and Mr. Stephensen are directors.          

This new Australian publishing house will begin issuing books next month under the imprint of The Endeavour Press. The press-mark of the firm is a design of Captain Cook's Endeavour in full sail, designed by Norman Lindsay. The first novel issued will be a new book by Norman Lindsay, entitled "Saturdee," a humorous story about Australian schoolboy pranks, mischief and fun. Its appearance will be eagerly awaited.  

First published in The West Australian, 1 April 1933

Note: you can read a little about the banning of Redheap here.

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

Reprint: To the Editor of the Herald: Steele Rudd by J. Le Gay Brereton

Sir, - We must be heartily grateful, in these days of anxiety, to any man who can lighten our troubles -- who can make us temporarily forget our difficulties in the relaxation of pure amusement. "With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;" and no Australian writer has provoked more abundant mirth than the veteran humourist, Steele Rudd. The Fellowship of Australian Writers gives us all an opportunity to acknowledge practically our goodwill to our cheerful friend. This month it presents, as a testimonial to Steele Rudd, a performance of five brief Australian plays, written respectively by Vance Palmer, Louis Esson, Basil Garstang, Carrie Tennant, and Nora McAuliffe. His Excellency, Sir Philip Game, and Lady Game, recognise the significance of the occasion, and extend their patronage. It Is to be hoped that all who desire to recognise the worth of Steele Rudd will make an attempt to be present on August 21 and 22, especially as, in view of the financial stress, the prices of admission are only two shillings and one shilling. The tickets may be obtained at Paling's, where seats may be booked. Let us encourage the fellowship in its good work by turning up to demonstrate our appreciation of the author of "On Our Selection."

I am, etc.,

J. LE GAY BRERETON.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 August 1931

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

Reprint: The Australian Muse by E. M. England

It seems that we have to go through a long experimental stage in order to find ourselves. This is only natural in a nation composed of so many diverse stocks as ours. But out of all the chaos the national muse will emerge at last, smiling and serene, for, above all other things, the Australian is intent upon all that he does. From the galloping rhymes which stirred our fathers we tend now to swing to the other extreme. Most of our poets are busy studying style and the lore of other countries, and in that we can only be imitative. Take the work of Dulcie Deamer and Bettie Riddell, both of whom spend much energy upon classical legend. The legend of the Maori and the aboriginal should lend themselves to rhyme as much as the classical myths. In the abstract the mournful aboriginal and the courageous Maori are poetical -- equally with the noble Red Man so lauded by American poets. Especially the Maori. His appearance, his prowess in war, his mysterious origin -- all these should provide much scope. But apparently our poets are left cold. Every wild race has its yearnings and ideals -- emotions often incomprehensible to the white mind, because the dark man cannot or will not explain them. If we could contrive his unity with nature, in addition to our book-learning, what poets might arise!

The Great Out-of-Doors.

This intangible something is every where at hand in the bush, but, unfortunately, poets tend to congregate in towns. Any morning the essence of many secrets can be felt rising and wreathing about one like incense in the great outdoors. It seems to be waiting for the eye and the ear that can understand. Many bushmen feel it, but they could not express it in words. It is the magic that would emanate from a very old woman, who retained the beauty of youth until her death -- a "She" incarnate. Who is going to seize upon the weird glamour and sing of it? If we are ever going to have any characteristic poetry of our own it must strike the happy medium between the old galloping rhymes and the modern tendency to stray into other pastures. In the great area of this continent there must lie plenty of scope for hundreds of pen-points, hundreds of bards. We are ready to enjoy any type of good poetry, but it seems inevitable that the poet who will be selected as our national one will be a man or woman who inter- prets the message of the Australian landscape. From the foam of the Pacific, the sands of the desert, the opal-tinted ranges, the mines, the wells of oil and water, the grassy plains, his inspiration must come. And that it will come there is no doubt.

Foreign Inspiration.

In the meantime it is of little use to complain that our poets turn to other countries for their subject matter. If they live in towns they cannot understand the true Australia any more than a man in New York or London or Ontario could fully grasp the American, English, or Canadian countryside. Perhaps, in their ambition and thirst for knowledge, they read too much. There may be such a thing as cramming, even in regard to poetry. Otherwise, why do Mabel Forrest, Dorothy MacKellar, and Myra Morris persistently introduce foreign climes, Eastern pageantry. Why are the Celtic mystics so much felt in the poems of L. Lucas and S. Neilson, the classical influence in Z. Cross and H. M'Crae? Even Edward Vidler himself, in his exquisite little play, "The Rose of Ravenna," went to old and mellow times for his plot. Still, all this is excusable. Poetry is universal, and all who run may read. A poet cannot be bound any more than a bird. Cage a feathered songster, and the best of its songs are mute -- certainly the fresh, wild ecstasy goes. It is useless to tell a poet that he must turn this way or that way for his subject matter. It only hampers and embarrasses him.

And it is not a scrap of use to be ashamed of being Australian. In the first place, why should we? It was with mingled feelings that I read in the "Galmahra" of October last the following sentiments re Jack Lindsay's publication, "Vision":

"It represents one of the landmarks of Australian literature, for it crystallised the growing revolt of the younger literary generation both against the shackles of 'local colour,' and against the too-convenient Swinburnian dress that Australian verse had, for the most part, worn since the days of Adam Lindsay Gordon and Kendall."

The Place of Local Colour.

Let that "too-convenient dress" "go by all means, but why, in the name of reason, should we be averse to "local colour"? If one takes up a book of verse by a poet from South Africa, does one hope to read of larks and dells and fens? No, one probably finds, and certainly hopes to, a thing like "Zulu Girl":

When in the sun the hot red acres smoulder,
   Down where the sweating gang its labour piles,
A girl throws down her hoe and from her shoulder,
   Unslings her child tormented by the flies.
She takes him to a ring of shadow pooled
By thorn-trees; purpled with the death of ticks.

-something that breathes of veldt and kopje and vast space. Any Australian ought to be equally typical of his country, or, if he is not, wishful of being so. Otherwise he is denouncing that which should be nearest and dearest to him. If he is reluctant to be Australian, then what is he going to be?

While oversea critics may label our work as doubtful because of its very atmosphere, I am confident they respect us all the more as they watch us developing along our own lines; watch the Australian--

Above the level desert's marge
Looming in his aloofness large while
From his life's monotony
He lifts a subtle melody.

to quote Arthur Adams' very true picture of "The Australian."

We are in a state of transition. Not that the stockman, sheep, or cattle have disappeared from our landscape. But other things have come as well. To our old interests new ones have been added, so that poets, as well as ordinary people, have new and universal themes. All we have to do is to be patient, and to encourage, to have faith in our poets and ourselves. It is very certain that there is light ahead.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 8 September 1928

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: Books and Bookshops by Nettie Palmer

Sir, - Having been startled, not for the first time, by the gaps in Brisbane bookshops I must ask why this state of affairs is allowed to exist. If as I believe, a city is to be judged by what its people read, then Brisbane is not getting a chance. On this occasion the book I sent for was Katherine Prichard's "Working Bullocks." It proved to be unprocurable in Brisbane. This was not an obscure book, suited only to learned or exotic tastes, nor an old book, liable to be out of print. It was very favourably reviewed in Brisbane papers about two months ago. Further, it has been included in the monthly list of books recommended by Australasian booksellers. After this, it is hardly necessary to mention that the book has been reviewed by overseas papers like the "Times Literary Supplement," with conspicuous approval, and has attracted great attention in the chief Australian weeklies. Its absence from bookshops and libraries in Brisbane is not to be explained in the same way as my experience last year, when it was similarly impossible to get a copy of any of W. B. Yeats' poems, written during the last 20 years. Now Yeats is a poet of international fame, and a Nobel prize winner, yet for Brisbane he has ceased to exist. Katherine Prichard is a contemporary Australian writer, of admitted distinction, yet her latest book is "unprocurable in Brisbane." Do our booksellers really think that literature is a kind of drapery, and that we should not want anything except what is exposed for sale in the shop windows!  

I am, sir. &c.,  

NETTIE PALMER.  

Caloundra, March 25    

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 31 March 1927

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

Reprint: Review of "The Banjo's" Poems by Anonymous

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 is -- not as 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 consideration 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 every one 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--

was more than a match for experienced stockmen of more imposing stature and greater age, for--  

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 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.

Small wonder that lines such as these should stir the hearts of men who recognise in them scenes from their own lives and moments of enthusiasm. 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 Old Campaspe River, where the breeses 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 moonlight 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.

We might go on quoting indefinitely from the other half-hundred poems in the book without wearying our readers, but justice to the author and the publisher requires a halt. It is sufficient to say that there is many an hour's delight in "The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses" for everyone who loves the Australian bush and bush life. But we would fain give one closing extract, from "Clancy of the Overflow," as an admirable picture of the romantic side of the drover's life--  

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 drovers' life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

"The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses" by A. B. Paterson. Sydney : Angus & Robertson. London : T J. Pentland.

First published in The Queenslander, 26 October 1895

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

You can read the full text of this collection at Project Gutenberg.

Reprint: Death of Mrs. Mary Hannay Foott

Australian literature has suffered a distinct loss by the death of Mrs. Mary Hannay Foott, which occurred at Bundaberg on Saturday last after a short illness. Mrs. Foott had been walking in the streets of the town on Tuesday of last week, but on the same night contracted pneumonia, and died on Friday evening. Her daughters-in-law, Mrs. C. H. Foott and Mrs. A. P. Foott, had been summoned from Brisbane, but arrived an hour after the end came. Mrs. Foott had no relatives in Bundaberg, her elder son, Brigadier-General C. H. Foott, being absent on active service, while her second son, Arthur P. Foott, was killed in action in France a year ago. The funeral took glace at Bundaberg on Sunday, and was largely attended. The service was conducted by the Rev. Canon Beasley.

The late Mary Hannay Foott was a native of Glasgow, where she was bom on September 26, 1846. She was the daughter of the late James Black, while her mother was of the Hannay family, whose name was well known in literature. Mrs. Foott arrived in Australia in 1853, at the age of 7, and received her education in Melbourne. In 1874 she married Mr. Thomas Wade Foott, and lived for some years on Dundoo station, in South-western Queensland. On the death of her husband in 1884 she came to live at Rocklea, near Brisbane, and there opened a small private school, at which, in addition to the ordinary subjects, she gave lessons in music and painting. Possessing considerable artistic skill, she also gave much attention to literature, to which, indeed, most of her time was devoted, and she soon gave up her school to take the position of literary editor on the "Queenslander," which she occupied for many years. It was under her regime that the publication of social gossip, which has since become an institution in the daily as well as the weekly papers, was initiated. She retired from active newspaper work a number of years ago, and for some years had resided at Bundaberg. Mrs. Foott was the author of many poems, most of which appeared in the "Queenslander." She has published two volumes of verse--"Where the Pelican Builds, and Other Poems" (Brisbane, 1885) and "Morna Lee and Other Poems" (London, 1890).

First published in The Queenslander, 19 October 1918

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: Lawson - Bush Poet

Sir - Kindly allow me space to state that I, too, consider it a distinct libel to say that Lawson was not a bushman, and positively inaccurate to attribute his bush ideas as borrowed from strangers. I, personally, knew Lawson, and although I admit he was a very poor horseman, in other respects he was most typical of the bush. He was born near Gulgong, reared on a small selection, migrated to Sydney, dissatisfied with city life, drifted out to Bourke, humped his swag down the Darling, headed for Queensland, reached Wanaaring, Hungerford, and Thargomindah, worked in the shearing sheds en route, and again got back to Bourke, wrote a local poem about "Watty Braithwaite," but never got out that far again. I think his late years were spent on the Yanco irrigation areas. I believe his first 25 years were spent exclusively in the bush. His writings, in my opinion, leave no doubt whatever as to his being a bushman (not a horseman), or I should more correctly state "swagman," meaning one who carries his swag. The name of his first book, "While the Billy Boils," is characteristic. "To an Old Mate," "Out Back," "Sweeney," "Coming Home," "Middleton's Rouseabout," "Andy's Gone with Cattle," and many others that I cannot at present quote from memory. "The City Bushman" is a tilt at Banjo Paterson, which by no stretch of imagination could be applied to Lawson. I believe Lawson's characters are all live ones (no creations); and in most cases are his own practical experiences, hence they are true in every detail, thereby lies the strength and realism not to he found in any other Australian writer. Previous to Lawson's appearance, most of our scribes were horsemen, Gordon, Boake, Paterson, Ogilvie, &c. I am a thorough bushman, with 50 years' bush experience, mostly Queensland, and I am satisfied no other writer is dearer to the hearts of bushmen than Lawson. - I am, sir, &c., 

CHAS. MOORE,  

Winton, November 29.  

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 8 December 1927

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

Note: you can find the text versions of the poems mentioned in this letter on the Project Gutenberg Australia site.

This letter was written in response to a report on a lecture about Henry Lawson, and follows a similar letter reprinted here.

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: Lawson - "City Bushman"

[In October 1927 F. Bennett, in connection with Australian Authors' week, gave a speech in Brisbane that described Henry Lawson as a "town bushman".  Last week I reprinted a summary of that speech from The Brisbane Courier, and followed that up with a letter in reply. 

[Bennett then repeated the main thrust of his argument about Lawson at the November 1927 meeting of the Queensland Authors' and Artists' Association, which received a mention in The Brisbane Courier on 19th November 1927.  The following letter appeared in the same paper a few days later.]

Sir, - At the November meeting of the Authors' and Artists' Association, held in the Women's Club rooms on Tuesday, 15th inst-, a report of which appeared in your issue of Saturday last, Mr. F. Bennett, when reading a sketch from the pen of the late Henry Lawson, is alleged to have stated that Lawson must not be taken seriously as regards the bush -- he was a "town bushman." From whence does Mr. Bennett derive his information? Is it not a parrot-like reiteration of the sentiments expressed by a Mr. A. G. Stephens in a recent issue of the Brisbane "Daily Mail,", when the latter gentleman commented on the home and family life of our late lamented author? Among other things, Mr. Stephens is reported to have stated that Lawson never wrote true to the Australian bush-he was a townsman, and got most of his information of bush life, and methods from travellers, &c. That is not so, and no person should know the character and eccentricities of Lawson better than Mr. Stephens. The late author rarely spoke to any one, and certainly never sought information from strangers. He was a morose and lonely wayfarer at all times. Why this personal attack on Henry Lawson? As to his not having been a bushman, did not the Sydney "Bulletin," in commenting on one of his books of short story, class his stories as "wedges cut clean out of real life." Again, does Mr. Stephens or Mr. Bennett remember the comments of that paper on another of his publications. "How real he is, how natural, how true, how strong"? And will they still continue to place their opinions against what is probably the highest authority in Australian literature, and maintain that Lawson was "not a bush- man, and wrote not of the bush"? If so, sir, I should strongly advise these gentlemen to read on, and see what David M'Kee Wiight had to say, under date September, 1918, on the life and merit of Henry Lawson:- "Henry Lawson is the first articulate voice of the real Australia. ... He knows men and women -- his men and women. In the world's loneliest places he has grasped hard hands alive with heroic meaning.

... He was born in a tent on the Grenfell goldfield in 1867, and spent his boyhood on old mining fields and on a selection his father had taken up. ... He has lived the life that he sings, and seen the places of which he writes; there is not a word in all his work which is not instantly recognised as honest Australian. The drover, the stockman, the shearer, the rider far on the skyline, the girl waiting at the slip- rails, the big bush funeral, the coach with flashing lamps passing at night along the ranges, the man to whom home is a bitter memory, and his future a long despair, the troops marching to the beat of the drum, the wilderness of the Never-Never -- in long procession the pictures pass, and every picture is a true one, because Henry Lawson, has been there to see with the eyes of his heart. At 21 Lawson, was probably the most remarkable writer of verse in Australia ... Of Lawson's place in literature it is idle to speak. Something of what Burns did for Scotland, something of what Kipling did for India, he has done for Australia. ... If permanency is to be looked for anywhere, it is in vital, red-blooded work such as Lawson's -- work that came so straight from the heart that it must always find a heart to respond to it. All Australia is there, painted ,with a big brush in the colours in which its people see it. - I am, sir, &c.,

FRANK WALKER. Kelvin Grove, November 22.

[Mr, Bennett was quite correct in saying that Lawson was not a bushman. Lawson never claimed that he was. Because eulogistic remarks have been made of some of his poems and some of his stories, that does not make Lawson a bushman or a bush poet. The fact that, without experience, he wrote so correctly of one phase of bush-life does not detract from his merits; rather it adds to them.-Ed. "B.C."]

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: Henry Lawson

Sir,- Henry Lawson was not a gloomy poet. I have seen it written over and over again that Lawson thought only of gloomy things; and wrote accordingly. The trouble with half the critics would-be high-brows -- who presume to talk airily about Henry Lawson is that they have never read his poetry at all, or if they did they have failed to grasp what on earth he was writing about. The truth and nothing but the truth was in Henry Lawson. Anyone who ever saw the man, and looked into his eyes, knew that he was the personification of truth. Lawson wrote the truth and the truth evidently is unpalatable. Breezy, expansive jingles about the outback are all very fine for school readers, and as propaganda for immigrants, but they don't express the soul of the toilers whom Lawson wrote for. Armchair criticism always fails in its purpose because it is invariably superficia and always conventional. As an ardent admirer of Lawson's works, I resent the imputation that the man had a gloomy outlook. Of course, if the truth is gloomy well then Lawson was gloomy; but the unfortunate part is that the conventional souls in our midst don't understand the truth of things and don't want to understand it. Your brilliant sub-leader on "Intolerance" furnishes the argument I desire to put forward. So long as Bishop Barnes is willing to stand up in his pulpit and talk trite trash, in which neither he nor half his congregation believe, he is accepted as a popular preacher and the conventionalists hail him as a heaven-inspired genius. Once he gets down to the truth of things and states it openly, fearlessly, and courageously, he is bitterly attacked. It is exactly the same with Dean Inge, known throughout the length and breadth of the Empire as the "gloomy dean." The truth is unpalatable; we don't want to hear it, and the man who utters it is assigned to oblivion by supercilious critics whose composition prevents them from getting down to bedrock and seeing the heart of things -I am, sir, &c.

WARATAH

Kangaroo Point, October 19

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 21 October 1927

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

Note: this letter was written in repsonse to a report on a lecture about Henry Lawson, reprinted here.

The keynote in the admirable lecturette on Henry Lawson, which was delivered by Mr. F. Bennett, B.Sc, in connection with Australian Authors' Week, at the Old Normal School yesterday morning, was the poet's sympathy with the down-trodden.  

In all Henry Lawson's writings, both prose and poetry there is strong evidence that he sympathised with the workers; that he thought their cause was right, though he had no love for the professional agitator. A man is not often found who takes his politics from his mother-in-law, but those who knew Mrs. M'Namara, owner of a second-hand bookshop in Castlereagh-street, Sydney, and a most pronounced Labour symnathiser, will readily subscribe to the view that Henry Lawson fell under her spell. When one reads his "Faces in the Street" - which the lecturer described as the Australian "Song of the Shirt" - his mother-in-law's influence may be traced in his references to the "Red Revolution," but the poem, though presenting an exaggerated picture, is lifted to the sublime by the tender compassion and burning indignation, against oppression which throbs through every line.

Many people hold the belief that Lawson was a bush poet, but the lecturer disclosed that Lawson only made one trip to the outback, and that he had no real love for the country. That one trip was Lawson's sole claim to be the interpretor of the men of the "out-back." His observations on that one occasion furnished him with local colour, but most of his bush stories were collected from bushmen who came to Sydney on a periodical "spree." Comparing Lawson with "Banjo" Paterson, the lecturer pointed out that Paterson wrote from the point of view of the drover and of the squatter-men of some education and means -- to whom "the bush" was the gateway to a probable affluence; whereas Lawson pictured the svvagman, and a town swagman at that, a man with little education, no means, and no possibility of a future competence, however modest. Hence his outlook was a gloomy one, and this is illustrated in his description of the life of the far Western worker :-

In stifling noons when his back was wrung
By its load, and the air seemed dead,
And the water warmed in the bag that hung  
To his aching arm like lead,
Or in times of flood, when plains were seas, 
And the scrubs were cold and black,     
He ploughed in mud to his trembling knees,      
And paid for his sins out-back.

Mr. Bennett said that Lawson could attack great questions and wide issues. In "The Star of Australasia" Lawson was seen as no mere shallow writer of superficial jingle. He loved his fellow men and pitied their griefs, but he was not blind to their weaknesses, nor to his own. He yearned to help them, but could do no more than svmpithise, and this he showed in all his work.

Dr. T. W. Robinson presided over a large audience chiefly consisting of senior scholars of primary schools.

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 19 October 1927

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

Note: I fear the "senior scholars of primary schools" would have learned far more about Mr. F. Bennett, B.Sc, and his politics, than about Henry Lawson from this lecture.  You will see that praise is given only when Lawson tackles "wider issues", which is really code for "things that matter", ie anything other than workers, swagmen and country people who are merely people "with little education, no means, and no possibility of a future competence."

Needless to say I'm not the only one who thought this.  Letters to the editor, regarding this view of Lawson, will follow over the next week or so.

The poetry which starts "In stifling noons..." is taken from the poem "Out Back", which you can find, along with the text of "The Star of Australasia", here.

The recent passing of "Banjo" Paterson inclines us to wonder how many of the company of balladists who flourished in the 90's and early 1900's remain. In the period mentioned their name was legion. A new star seemed to flash, every week -- many suddenly went out.  How would the younger generation today react if it read those virile verses which once held such a vast audience? Maybe the writers would be regarded as ultra-sentimentalists in these hard-boiled times.

In the 90's, when the ballad boomed, the various States were passing through crises in their development. There were few secondary industries, wages were low, and work scarce. Economically, Australia was in a bad way and the balladists were the voice of Australia, in her anguish, or seeking relief in happy songs, such as those of The Banjo and Will Ogilvie, whose death preceded Banjo's by some months.

Another well-known ballad writer is Edwin J. Brady, who wore a red, piratical beard in those earlier days. He is very much alive at Mallacoota, and has just been awarded a subsidy by the Literary Fund to write a novel... His songs of the sea are front-rankers. And much of his knowledge came from his close association with ships along the Sydney waterfront. In the days of Lawson, Daley, Quinn, and other old-time balladists.

Another surviving writer of verse is Randolph Bedford, now living in Brisbane, where he represents the Maranoa electors in the State Parliament. Better known as a brilliant prose-writer, he often burst into verse of a remarkably vivid and robust type; but he has not written for a long time.

Roderic Quinn, regarded as the grand old man of the balladists, is evergreen, and writes fine verse still, though not as prolifically as in the days when he wrote "The Hidden Tide." His close friend, Bob Cassidy, "Gilrooney" in the "Bulletin" pages, seems to be evergreen, too.

A Lost Art.

Many years ago "Gilrooney" was droving with "Riverina," another outback balladist, whose name is Cecil Winter; and, strangely enough, this long-legged outbacker, who told me in a letter before I met him that he had never seen the sea, went to the war with the New Zealanders and married a New Zealand girl. His home is at Bluff, and he often breaks into song.

Only one old-timer survives of the New Zealand ballad writers, John Barr, who won his spurrs and the ear of the'"Bulletin" with his verse, "The Gaslight on the Beer." He conducts a page of verse and prose in a Sydney paper under the title, "The Shanty on the Rise." Bartlett Adamson, though a Tasmanian, came into prominence when in New Zealand, and is still writing verse.

The striking fact is that there are no recruits to this company of old, no sons to carry the banner. Ballad-writing seems to be a lost art. There are, of course, those who declare it never was an art; that it was just an outburst. But it spoke for its time.

Essex Evens, the Queensland poet, who won fame and a substantial cheque when he landed the prize for the Commonwealth Ode, may also have unconsciously written the death-knell of the ballad. It may be a wrong conclusion, but it seems likely that Federation killed the ballad, just as it cleaned up the "pushes" from the street corners of our cities.

Under Protection, work became plentiful. In his book. "Jonah," Louis Stone showed how the larrikins were absorbed into industries which sprang up. So with the balladists. There was more for them to do in other walks of life and many of the evils of which they wrote had vanished. It was Henry Lawson who declared that, while he was working as a telegraph linesman in New Zealand, "he was too healthy to write," a remark for which the "Bulletin" reproved him. He meant he was too healthily tired at the end of his day's work. So with other balladists. Verse-writing requires time and detachment.  

The popularity of the ballad was astounding; many a man on the track got free beers in country "pubs" by claiming to be one or other of the lesser lights of verse writers and reciting verses, which seemed to offer conclusive evidence of identity. At any rate he entertained his wayside listeners, and he might do it today, for in the bush the ballad still finds an audience.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 March 1941

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

Reprint: An Australian Novel: Review of "Jonah" by Louis Stone

In "Jonah," Mr. Louis Stone has given us an excellent novel. He has taken a phase of Australian life which has been rather neglected by local writers, and laid his setting in the slums of Sydney of a few years ago. Jonah, the deformed hero, is a sort of Napoleon of the gutter, the leader of a "push" in Waterloo, who has within him great possibilities. At first he is represented as an unsocial, unmoral outlaw, superior to his fellows only in force of character and enterprise, but later the half understood promptings of the paternal instinct lead him to marry the mother of his child, and turn him to honest work. Fortune and his own native abilities raise him higher and higher, but his wife cannot rise with him, and yearns for the gutter out of which she was lifted. Jonah turns for consolation elsewhere, but even here he is doomed to disappointment, for the object of his affections is selfish and mercenary, and proves to be in effect a murderess, as she has supplied his drunkard wife with liquor. So Jonah is left, his success turned to dust and ashes destined never to gain his heart's desire.

However, our interest in the plot is not confined to Jonah's career. Mr. Stone knows his subject, and writes with humour and observation, and a great deal of kindliness. His theme is often squalid, and the surroundings often repellant, but the author, without idealising, does not lay undue insistence on the unpleasant. There is the delightful idyll of Pinkey, factory girl, and "Chook," once leader of a push, whose savage soul is transfigured and tamed by a passion cleaner and sweeter than any he ever dreamed of, and who becomes a respectable, if somewhat bellicose, greengrocer. Then there is Mrs. Yabsley, the indomitable and great-hearted washer-woman who shares her good fortune with her neighbours, and submits to their imposition with open eyes out of sheer generosity. There is Paasch, the old German cobbler fiddler, broken by Jonah's ruthless progress; Mrs. Grimes, the wife of a drunkea ex-bank manager, who buries her refinement and her shame in the slums; Mrs. Partridge, Pinkey's idle and greedy step-mother, and a host of others. Mr. Stone will have no mere lay figures, and the smallest character, in his pages has a distinct individuality. The author is to be congratulated on this novel, which is a valuable and original contribution to Australian fiction. (Published by Methuen and Co.)

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 October 1911

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

Reprint: Poetry: A Mirror of Thought by O. Farquhar

Much has been said in these columns lately regarding poetry -- its decline, appreciation, etc. Have you ever been in a mirrored restaurant, especially on a dull, miserable day, and watched the very varied occupants of the tables, the sad-looking, or sometimes artificial flowers, the crude pictures on the walls, the paper-covered lights, etc., then looked round the mirrors, and seen all these things reflected? Everything you have been looking at only a moment before is changed by the glamour of reflection. The lights look like one version of fairyland, the flowers look as if they were growing there; that dull-looking girl with the snub nose and prominent teeth is shown in animated conversation with a friend; only the animation is noticeable. That shabby, genteel man is reflected, but without his shabbiness, and so one could go on enumerating the subtle changes the mirror seems to make.

To my mind the true poet, like the mirror, reflects with the same effect the people's thoughts. What a sense of satisfaction we derive when we seen portrayed in good verse some thought we have vaguely felt, yet could not find suitable words to express. We like it, we preserve it, and sometimes memorise it. Of course we know there are some people who cut out every piece of printed matter   which they see cut up into lines beginning with capital letters, but they are few. I myself read most verse I see; but if the first stanza offends my ear I generally stop there, unless out of curiosity I try to discover why it was printed.

Most of the Australian verse I have read from any one pen (probably I have not read a quarter of that published) reflects the thoughts of either the illiterate, the larrikin, the underdog, the bushman, the ardent admirer of Greek mythology, the high brow airing his wide vocabulary, or the person who is fond of "Blah." When I was younger I often felt timid in the company of the last-mentioned, and wished I had adopted a more exaggerated form of pronunciation; but since hearing our late beloved King George speak (per medium of the radio) I have been thankful I did not do so.

When we do get an Australian poet (and we will) who is able to reflect the thoughts of all classes in good, plain, simple English, we shall find that he will be acclaimed our national poet, and that a keen interest in poetry will not then be lacking.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 November 1936

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

Reprint: Will Dyson: Creative Militant by Nettie Palmer

Brisbane has always seemed to, me very fortunate to have in its picture gallery certain war drawings by Will Dyson. Nothing that comes from this artist in black-and white is without significance and power. In the days before the war he was producing satirical cartoons in London, where all the political and social movements were like a map in his mind, and G. K. Chesterton described Will Dyson's lines as being like that of a stock-whip -- a long, leaping thing, with an exact flick at the tip. Then, during the war, Dyson first produced his famous series of "Kultur-Cartoons," exhibited, I think, in 1915. Of these, perhaps, the most famous was "Alone with his God." It showed the Kaiser, a small, frail, but very military, figure, bowed on some tremendous altar-stairs; on the level at the top of the stairs was a seated deity, figure and face in all ways like the Kaiser's as he would wish them to be, powerful, abundant, austere! A great conception, and, like all Dyson's work, not limited to its immediate impression. In the end, you were not left with contempt for an egocentric man, but with a pity for all possible types of egocentric mankind. A year or so after the appearance of "Kultur-Cartoons" Will Dyson was sent to the front as artist with the Australian army. Whatever other artists or journalists may have made of such an opportunity, with Dyson it was no sinecure, no safe billet. Apart from at least one wound, he suffered intensely in his sheer understanding of the men's agony and courage. He felt that here was a superb generation being destroyed before his eyes. It was this grief that found permanent expression in certain poems he then wrote -- poems that have a high place on their merits, and not merely as the work of one whose usual medium was line and not words -- and also in the war drawings like those in the gallery. When the war was over, Dyson was as exhausted as any soldier, and for cause. He has taken up his work, however, these many years past; and about six years ago he came back to Australia, where he now lives, his work leavening our lump. That our corporate life really is a "lump" he not only admits, but emphasises, and his analysis of the state of affairs was uttered last week in a brilliant lecture on "The Arts in Australia."

"THE ARTS IN AUSTRALIA."

It is difficult to summarise a statement which, as delivered, was already summary and compact, but perhaps I can suggest its outline here. Will Dyson said, then, that we pay lip-service to the idea of art as nationally important, while giving art no practical basis in our national life. He was not dealing with the plastic arts nor with music, which in one way or another occupy a comparatively honoured position amongst us, but with literature the thought-basis of the arts, which is denied all serious expression. Along among "adult" and literate nations, we have no serious belief in the importance of giving full expression to our developing mental life. We have a lack of publishing houses, of quarterlies, of reviews, of satirical comment on our political and social life. We are content to be consumers, returning nothing to the world from which we import so freely:

An active publishing trade is the attribute of all adult nations. Until we have one we must remain colonial, provincial, and outside. It is essential to a right understanding of one nation by another. The publishing houses of Germany, by giving out such books as "All Quiet on the Western Front," and "The Case of Sergeant Grischa," are putting Germany back on to the map of human kinship. The same will soon be true of Russia. As is the American publishing houses that, by pouring out the works of Mencken, Dresier, Lewis, Sinclair, and O'Neill, are tempering the world's harsh and envious verdict on America.

What then will temper the world's verdict on us as a mere mental desert fed on tinned literature from overseas? Nothing but the habit of publishing books here. We cannot have Australian books effectively published and distributed here until, as in America, there is a publishing trade for all books. To make this possible we would need to alter our copyright law and make it in line with America's, a change that would be quite within our powers.

AGAINST NATIONAL COMPLACENCY.

Impassioned for Australian self expression, and convinced that we have certain utterances to contribute towards the sum of world literature, Will Dyson begged his audience to face the facts of our inarticulate condition:

The picture of Australia going cap-in-hand to Europe and America for all its mental food and its aesthetic entertainment is a disquieting one. We live on the charity of the world! Hostile critics paint a gloomy picture of our mental impotence; we cannot answer it, we can only excuse it, which is to admit it. The evidence with which such critics might be confounded does not exist to our hand, printed and bound in the pages of a book.

And what are the excuses that we make once we are driven to the last resort? We say, only too often, that we are pioneers, too busy to look up from the plough! This comes well from the millions of Australians trotting in to city circulating libraries every week, and consuming whatever is handed out: Will Dyson said:

It is a little late in the day. We are no more pioneers than are the rate-payers of Birmingham, of Dresden, of Munich, of Paris. Less, perhaps - there they are pioneering in thought: here we are neglecting the exploration of our great open spaces of the Australian mentality.

Perhaps it is best to leave the matter there, that last phrase giving us something to think over. Like many of Dyson's whip-lash phrases, even those written beneath his satirical cartoons, the phrase first glances with humour, then rankles, then spreads as a thought in the mind. This challenge has come at the right time. Certain pioneering of the Australian mentality has been surprisingly achieved this year in the form of the novel, against tremendous odds, which have had, covering a vast varied circuit of time and place, "Coonardoo," "A House Is Built," and "Ultima Thule," all of whom emphatically praised abroad by critics like Arnold Bennett and Gerald Gould, proud to sign their names, as books in which Australia can rejoice. But the existence of such books only suggests the potentialities of others in all forms that have been driven underground. How long, as Will Dyson asks, will our serious authors have to look abroad for that chance of expression that Australia denies them?

First published in The Brisbane Courier, 4 January 1930

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

Note: the cartoon that Palmer refers to above, "Alone with his God", is now in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.  More details of the cartoon, though no reproduction unfortunately, can be found here.

Reprint: Mary Gilmore. An Appreciation by Marjorie Quinn

Once I was at a gathering of 400 poets! Is it necessary to add that it was in the land of dollars and skyscrapers, where everything, from depression to poets, is produced in large quantities? It was a meeting of the Poetry Club in New York. A fierce battle of words was being waged between the adherents of the rhyme and metre school and the exponents of "vers libre." The champion of the vers librists was that large and brilliant lady, Amy Lowell, descendant of James Russell Lowell. Someone made claim that the Bible was written in free verse. Thin, pale little Padraic Colum, exiled from his native Ireland, jumped up and shouted earnestly, The Bible, he declared, was rhythmical prose! Much argument followed. From out the din Miss Lowell was heard declaiming that there were only two great American poets -- Whitman and Poe. (I remember feeling a heartache for poor, simple, neglected Longfellow.)

I can see Amy Lowell now, with her charming, soft-featured face rising above a huge body; with a broad forehead and keen eyes that dominated that large assembly as she looked with good-natured tolerance upon one of her disciples, a bizarre-looking lady, who claimed that she liked free verse because, by its odd arrangement of lines, it made such pretty patterns on the page!

But Amy Lowell, in spite of her fondness for free verse -- probably her adherents would say because of it -- was a really big woman, mentally as well as physically. She had a fine intellect, ready and brilliant wit, broad vision. In her mentality this outstanding figure in the poetic world of America seems to me to compare with Mary Gilmore, whom Dr. Mackaness considers "the most outstanding woman in the world of Australian letters." Mary Gilmore has a man's grip of things. With this she also has the broad vision and the all-embracing woman sympathy.

Her many poems gush from her eternal fount of sympathy, the expression of her outlook on life and its varied interests. At times it is but a little song that mirrors a mood or crystallises a passing thought. But always they are sincere: always they are human. There is the everyday, happy woman in "Marri'd" (one of her best known poems) :

      An' flushln' all at once
         An' smilin' just so sweet.
      An' bein' real proud
         The house is lookin' neat.

Simple, but the all in all of life for many a woman when her "man is comin' home."

THEMES MANY AND VARIED.

Every subject beckons her waiting pen. To take some titles: "A Ringbarked Tree," "The Lament of the Lubra," "Yuan Kang Su," "The Dead Harlot," "Life," "Linen for Pillows," "The Rue Tree," "Horses of the Mind." She writes as easily of the flight of swans as of the death of love; of poets, of soldiers; of trees and aborigines, of nuns in their cloister, and with ready jollity, as in "The Tilted Cart." But it may be that she will be remembered best as the champion of the vanishing race, as in "The Aboriginals":

      Who is this that cometh here,
      Bent and bowed, and in the sere.
      Who is this whose ravaged frame
      Seems to speak of wrong and shame?
      Child of people we betrayed,
      Name him man and yet a shade.

She has a deep understanding of the aboriginal, whom she had opportunity to observe in her girlhood days; a fine understanding and a feeling for the music of their place-names -- "A Song of Koonewarrah," "The Children of Mirrabooka," "Malebo."

Some seven volumes of verse she has published, nor are they slim volumes. It seems that when a thing enchants her, when a thing interests her, she must set her thoughts of it to verse. "Hound of the Road" (prose) and a cookery book she has also published, and is now engaged on her "Recollections."  

Mary Gilmore's birthday falls on the 16th of this month. The Fellowship of Australian Writers, of which she was a founder -- its aims are very dear to her heart -- is remembering her on that date.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 August 1933

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

Reprint: In the '90s. When Stevenson Came to Sydney by W. Farmer Whyte

      Ah! Did you once see Shelley plain,
         And did he stop and speak to you.
      And did you speak to him again?
         How strange it seems and new!

With these well-known lines Richard Le Gallienne begins his interesting book, "The Romantic '90s," published in 1926; and he goes on to write in his breezy way about the men of the time -- the poets and novelists, the playwrights, the actors, and the artists -- many of whom were his personal friends. But there is one in this gallery whom he never met and knew only by correspondence. This is Robert Louis Stevenson. "Since Byron was in Greece," wrote Edmund Gosse to Stevenson, "nothing has appealed to the ordinary literary man so much as that you should be living in the South Seas." For R.L.S. had made his home in Samoa. There, at Vailima, high up in the hills overlooking Apia, he lived in the nineties, and there, at the end of 1894, he died and was buried.

But Stevenson visited Sydney two or three times, and there are still living in our midst a few of those who "saw him plain" and stopped and spoke to him. Death has taken nearly all of them, and only the other day the "Herald" published a notice of the death in London of one of these old Sydney friends. This was Mr. Percy F. S. Spence, the Australian artist, who made a pencil sketch of Stevenson's head in Sydney, and sold it in 1890 to the National Portrait Gallery, London.

If you possess a copy of "The Antipodean," the illustrated annual which was edited by George Essex Evans and John Tighe Ryan and published by George Robertson and Company in Sydney in the nineties you will see some very dainty pen-and-ink sketches by Percy Spence illustrating a poem by Stevenson -"To my old familiars." And as a frontis-piece to the annual there is a signed photograph of RLS taken by Falk. There is no finer portrait of him in existence and as one looks upon his features -- the sprawling hair across the lofty forehead, the large dark, observant eyes the long, straight, flawless nose the uncommon mouth -- the mouth of the brilliant conversationalist and raconteur -- and the straggling moustache and little tuft under the lower lip, one can imagine how the people in Sydney's streets must have turned to look at him. A vivid personality, If ever there was one!  

AN INTERVIEWER'S DESCRIPTION

Mr. John Tighe Ryan, who was for many years editor of the "Catholic Press," has given us, in "The Antipodean," an interesting account of the great novelist whose fame goes on increasing with the years. "When I first saw Robert Louis Stevenson," he writes, "he was snugly ensconced in an easy-chair, a book on his knee and a smoking cigarette in his right hand. A glass of sherry was within reach on a little round table occupying the only space not filled by books, magazines, women's hats, and photographs -- the books being mostly presentation copies of poems which poured in upon him the moment it was announced that the master was in Sydney. Wreaths of light blue smoke were floating about the room. He had just risen from an afternoon nap and sleep, he said, was still in his head. I carried away in my memory recollections of the tones of the low, clear, but soft voice, with the slight Scotch accent, which added to the picturesqueness of the phrases; the rare gesture; the thin bronzed face changing with every mood; the fine sparkling eyes, so far apart; the active figure, so spare that in a windstorm it might require the leaden shoes of Philetas. I saw him often after that, for there were many things to attract me to the charmed circle of the Stevensons. The novelist's mother, who has kept a complete record of his boyhood, left for England while the family were in Sydney to arrange her affairs in Scotland before finally settling down in Samoa. The novelist himself is a laborious writer but when his work is done the breath of life is in every touch. Words are to him what colours are to the painter. Careless in personal dress, he is a stickler for literary style. Fame is caught by the turn of phrase. He reads his matter over time after time, fashions and re-fashions, and lives and revels in his work."

Then there is a reference to Mrs Stevenson - not the mother but the wife. "Once or twice, when I called at the hotel, I found Mrs. Stevenson leisurely smoking a cigarette and conversing with a group of friends. She is the most charming of women. There is beauty and character in that dark complexioned face, with the big soft eyes which can be so stern."

And do we not all of us know the beautiful lines which Stevenson himself wrote abou her?

         Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,
         With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,
         Steel-true and blade-straight,
         The Great Artificer Made my mate.

IN A "MAD MOOD"  

If my recollection is not faulty, Mr. Ryan once told me that the hotel where the Stevensons stayed was the old Oxford in King-street. I think it is the Union Club which is referred to in the following passage:- "A friend of mine saw Stevenson in what he swears was a 'mad mood.' They were at a Sydney club when R.L.S., who is the most genial of companions, suddenly rose from his seat and apparently forgetful of his surroundings, walked hastily up and down the room. His eyes were ablaze, his gaze intent, fierce and savage. Occasionally he stopped to make a few notes on a slip of paper on the table, then resumed his walk with feverish excitement, his lips moving all the time as if in conversation with unseen beings. The others smoked silently or read the papers throwing furtive glances at the spare figure, who seemed to them to have been taken possession of by a foreign devil. He was then engaged on 'The Wrecker,' and perhaps it was at this moment in the club room that he inspired the massacre of the crew of the 'Flying Scud'."  

This account of one of Stevenson's "mad moods," when he seemed to be taken possession of by some unseen power and to lose all consciousness of time and place, agrees with what his cousin, Graham Balfour, in the "Life," and H. J. Moors author of "With Stevenson in Samoa," tell us. But in the "Herald" of September 23, there appeared an article by "G. C." which leads one to believe that it was not "The Wrecker" Stevenson was thinking   about at the time, but the Rev. Dr. Hyde's attack on Father Damien. His reply is a famous thing. It was in Sydney that the Damien Letter was first printed in pamphlet form. It was printed privately and I have never been able to find out where. I wonder if Lady Jersey knows?

SOME OF HIS FRlENDS

Why do I mention Lady Jersey? Well, she was one of Stevenson's friends, and during a visit she made to Samoa, accompanied by her brother, Captain Leigh, and her daughter, Lady Margaret Villiers, she was herself associated with him in a little book that was privately printed. This was "An Object of Pity," and the year was 1892. The Open letter to Dr. Hyde was printed in Sydney on March 27, 1890.

Mr. Moors, in his book, gives away a secret -- he tells us that our Governor's wife passed herself off under an assumed name on a certain famous occasion. "On August 23, a dinner in Samoa was given by King Malietoa Laupepa to the distinguished visitors. But Lady Jersey was not content with seeing the acknowledged King of Samoa -- she wanted also to visit Mataafa, the rival claimant to the throne. To do this great secrecy was necessary, as it would never do for it to become publicly known that the wife of the Governor of New South Wales had visited the "rebel king"; and accordingly it was as his cousin, 'Amelia Balfour,' that Mr. Stevenson introduced her ladyship to Mataafa, and it was as 'Amelia Balfour' that she was presented with the customary bowl of kava. Despite all precautions, however, news of the visit leaked out and so seriously was it regarded that I believe the British Consul received a severe rap on the knuckles from the Home authorities for conniving at it."

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 December 1933

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: Poetry in Australia by Mary Gilmore

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Sir, - Poetry in Australia is, for the present, in the doldrums as far as publication is concerned, and I should say that it is largely because the psychic and intellectual human cry for rhythm, and for the implied musical effect of language as used in poetry, has been met by radio programmes -- and met by these more as a novelty than as an actual substitute. The novelty wearing off, it may again be that poetry will become a recognised national need, and once more a national mode of expression. The wealthy and the so-called intellectual classes have never been the supporters of literature in its highest form here. Otherwise, as they have greatly increased in numbers and possessions of late years, poetry would still be supported as when they were a small part of the population. It was the common people and their more or less nomadic offspring who stood to the Australian writer. It was the boundary-rider and the stockman, together with the horse-lover generally, who made Gordon's fame. It was the increase, through sheep, of the shearer and the drover made Henry Lawson and Paterson the men of their hour. Actually the shearing sheds and the cattle camps were the intellectual theatres of Australia, and it was in those theatres, writers' names were made when made at all.

But machinery came, and poetry declined because machinery replaced working men. It also made the semi-nomadic the permanently housed, because they had to have a fixed job. As a housed people they took to the gramo- phone, first, and radio afterwards. Consequently one book, poem, or song, reached ten thousand ears at once. There became no need for memory; a clock (and a programme) ticked the hour. There was no need for a bookshelf even of only one book, for an announcer's voice struck and held the ear. But (and this is something) as a part of its food for natural growth and the maintenance of an active level, human nature consistently asks for the new, and mechanical repetition becomes in the end its own destroyer. After a time it cannot produce anything that is effectively freshening. So perhaps one day Australia will regain her name as a land of song and of verse. The letters appearing in this paper may be the first spring crocus of that renewal. The desire to see Christopher Brennan published in enduring form, is equally the desire to see Australia stand face to face among the writers of the world, and not as an almost invisible and unconsidered joint at the end of a long tail.

I am. etc.,  

MARY GILMORE.

King's Cross, July 21.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 July 1936

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

George Robertson, who did more for Australia and her literature than any man who had lived before him, finished his life work a few hours since and passed quietly away.'

Many an able pen will be engaged in piecing together an appreciation of the man to whom the nation is so greatly indebted. But no man, or woman, be they ever so appreciative, will do better work than was done nearly 23 years ago by Henry Lawson, whom the late George Robertson loved with all his heart.

I had the privilege of seeing the poet and his publisher at close quarters over a long term of years, and saw both in their best and happiest moods. It was also my joy to hear Mr. Robertson read his Lawson from the manuscripts and from the galley proofs, and later on from the finished volume, named "In the Days When the World was Wide," which was the second book of importance published by Angus and Robertson during the year 1895.

The firm's first was "The Man from Snowy River," by A. B. Paterson, which introduced a new note into our national poetry, and began the work that within a few years was to make the name of Angus and Robertson a household word throughout Australia. George Robertson, and not his partner, Donald Angus, had the guiding hand in that great venture. I was close enough to both at that time to feel that the older man was not so interested or so hopeful of the Paterson and Lawson ventures as his humour-loving and far-sighted junior.

AFTER KIPLING.

"Snowy River" was fashioned on Rudyard Kipling's "Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads," which were being widely read at that time.

In type, paper, binding, set-up, and everything else, the Australian book was to be quite a facsimile of the others. A copy of that first edition is at my elbow now, the end papers yellow and stained with age, and the lettering just a little less bright than it was when I covered it with the scarlet cloth used in the Book Club nearly 38 years ago.

Pasted inside the cover of "Snowy River" is a notice announcing that "A volume of poems by Henry Lawson would appear." At that time, the name of the book had not been decided upon. The name "Banjo" did not appear either on the title page or at the close of Mr. Paterson's short introduction. The volume was an immediate success. From that day on, George Robertson began to mount the ladder by which he rose to fame among the publishers of the world.

Strange to say, the firm's first book was not dedicated to anyone. That feature was overlooked. Henry Lawson's "In the Days When the World was Wide" had two dedications, one to "J. F, Archibald" and the other in verse "To an Old Mate." And, occupying a place at the end of this volume appeared Angus and Robertson's first announcements. Among these appeared "My Sundowner and other Poems," by John Farrell; poems by Victor Daley, "Rhymes from the Mines" and other lines, by Edward Dyson; and "A Saltbush Certainty," by A. B. Paterson, whose name on one of these pages figures before The Banjo in brackets.

Some time during 1910, Henry Lawson, who had had 14 years' experience of his publisher, wrote, "The Auld Shop and the New," published and privately circulated during 1923, which, on the title page, he confesses to have "Written specially for 'The Chief,' George Robertson, of Angus and Robertson, as some slight acknowledgement of and small return for his splendid generosity during years of trouble." Only 75 copies of this little volume were put into circulation. My copy is No. 16. It is a great treasure, full of priceless pen pictures well known to all who frequented the Auld Shop in Castlereagh-street. Unfortunately, there are too many libellous references in the story. These Henry Lawson hoped the "partners would take in the 'spirit' in which he had written them. The 'Auld Shop and the New' was to be the property of the head of the firm, to do with as he likes, and to be added to as the years go on."

LAWSON'S PREFACE.

"To express great praise or gratitude in the rhyme itself, or to tone or smooth it down, would be to spoil the 'art' (or artfulness) of the thing and be false to the idea of the 'inspiration' of it," Henry Lawson wrote in the preface to the volume.

Mr. Robertson held the verses on the original foolscap sheets on which they were written in pencil, until a year after the poet's death, before publishing them. They were part of a parcel of work which I had bought for inclusion in "The Skyline Riders," but were obviously not for publication. After holding them for some time I gave them to Mr. Robertson.

Every word in the prose story appealed to "the Chief," as Henry Lawson called him. Nothing that Lawson wrote made him laugh so hilariously. Only Lawson could have painted such faithful word pictures of the old shops long since passed away.

Mr. Robertson, in his notes on "The Auld Shop," said he could fill a volume with stories of "the Dane," as his co-religionists styled him.

Among other statements made in that contribution, Mr. Robertson tells of purchasing Henry Lawson's first book of poems for £54, the sum of £14 being paid to him in advance.  

"The volume." he says, "was to be produced at the publishers' risk. When 'Snowy River' had proved such a great success, we voluntarily wrote to Lawson to say that we would cancel the straight out sale and consider the £54 a payment in advance of half profits. In a short time we were forced to buy him out again."

No publisher ever did more for one of his clients than the late George Robertson did for Henry Lawson. Few men have done more for their adopted country. His life work left Australia better, brighter, happier, and more hopeful than he found it.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 September 1933

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

Reprint: Talking of Odes by C. J. Dennis

Talking of Centenary odes - No: I shall not say what I was going to say, because I believe that the encouragement of poetic expression, or, if you like, verse writing and verse appreciation, is a good thing for this, or any other country. Others will perhaps recall, better than I, his exact phrasing who declared that he would willingly forgo all other triumphs in his country's service were he permitted to write his country's songs. And the truth underlying that strange aspiration is as vital today as it was when the lines were written.

But I am afraid that the majority of us (including the verse writers) have grown too mentally indolent to delve a little and discover why truth should be there, and why it should be vital.

If you don't want to make the discovery, well, you won't. And that's that. Keep on lobbying, and try to induce the Government to raise the duty on something you are making, or to lower the duty on something you are importing, or to pay a bonus on something you are producing, and you will probably make a lot more money, and be happy ever after.

Do you know that, not so many years ago, Australia, in proportion to population, had more poets and verse writers than any country on earth, with the possible exception of Wales? But Australia's proportion of verse buyers (and so, presumably, verse readers) was easily the highest.

In recent years the beating of the primitive tom-tom, the howls, cat-calls, and cacophony of jazz, and the wailing cry of unspeakable crooners, have deafened the listening world to the voice of the poet crying in a wilderness. We are, for the moment, in the hands of the cheap-jacks; but they shall not prevail.

For today signs are not wanting that poetry (and its humble sister, verse) are coming back to their respective dominion. Poetry, one of the great arts of man, will inevitably survive, because it IS one of the great arts, and, therefore, Imperishable.

The revival of poetry may not come in the old forms of pastoral simplicities, in heroic and other forms that thrilled our forebears. It may take on nobler and even grander forms. Who knows? Even the free verse addicts may be groping for something. But come it will.

But modern exponents of jungle rhythm and archaic antiphonies, distorted out of recognition, need not pride themselves that they have had hand in the temporary setback that poetry has suffered. That came in the 'nineties, with the inevitable swing of the pendulum form the limit of the arc which it had reached in the 'eighties. Tennyson, Swinburne, the strangely virile Henley, and their ilk sang its lullaby. Then came the worldly wise men who "watched their step" (and their publishers). Kipling, Meredith, Hardy, all wrote verse - sometimes poetry - but it was, as it were, a by-product of their industry.

With the waxing of the industrial age they, too, had become, unconsciously, industrialist. Thus Kipling, who wrote "The Recessional" and "The Widower" for his heart, also wrote "Plain Tales from the Hills" and "Jungle Stories" for a living.

So with Meredith and Hardy who, had they not been great novelists, might, in even happier circumstances, have been great poets. But they, prophetically, saw the writing on the wall, or in the newspapers, or somewhere, and did the worldly-wise thing. But the pendulum, if I see it aright, has reached its other extreme.

So, potential writers of the great Centenary Ode, be not discouraged! If your best is good, there is a chance that it will live.

I had intended this to be a brightly humorous article; but, carried away by what the Victorians roguishly called "the exuberance of my own verbosity," I have been led astray. I am sorry.

But, talking of Centenary Odes, my advice to young ode writers is: "Be exuberant; be verbose" - for your own entertainment. Then, for the public, cull the gold (if any) from the dross. And, if your best is good - who knows. Poetry may yet be classed among Australia's primary products, and be bolstered with a bonus.

First published in The Herald, 30 January 1934

Note: the centenary of the state of Victoria in 1934 brought forth the concept of an ode to commemorate the event. Dennis had a lot of fun with the idea, and a lot to say about it.

Reprint: Mark Twain's Last Lecture

There was a packed house last night at the Protestant Hall to hear Mark Twain deliver his last talk in Sydney. He repeated the quaint discourse with which he opened last week; and, as on the former   occasion, he kept his audience highly diverted by his dry humour and oddity of fancy. He speaks with a peculiar intonation - almost a drawl - that adds point to his stories. He spoke of the eerie effect of the moonlight glinting on the pale white face of the corpse in the outhouse, and of his frightened bound through the window, taking the sash with him. His illustration of "special providence;" his description of an animal as not a "mongrel dog," but a "composite" or a "syndicate" dog; his reference to "burglars, lawyers, highway men - all that goes to make life happy;" and his account of his horse that was all "points" - these were hugely enjoyed by those present. Mark Twain has the happy gift of moving his audience at will, and the crowded house that listened to him last night testified to the success of his season in Sydney.
 
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 September 1895
 

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

Note: Mark Twain travelled to Australia as a part of his global speaking tour in the 1890s.  You can read his account of his travels, Following the Equator, at the Gutenberg site.

Reprint: Joseph Conrad by Barney Reed

His visits to Australia

The writer has in his possession a letter from Joseph Conrad which definitely outlines the visits of the great author to Australia. Those numbered four, but quoting from the letter itself will tell of his visits in his own words: "I was in Sydney," he writes, "for the first time in 1879, then in 1880. I was appointed to the command of the barque Otago, belonging to Messrs Henry Simpson and Sons, by the British Minister in Bangkok, her master having died on her passage out. This was in 1887. I left her in 1889, resigning my command in order to return home by Suez. I visited Australia again in the years 1892-3 as chief mate of the ship Torrens. These are all the details bearing on my relations with Australia."

The letter, which is dated March 26, 1924, is written from Oswalds, Bishopsbourne, Kent, and concludes with a kindly, reference to his association with Australia. "... I met there with nothing but kindness from people in various social spheres, and I have acquired a great affection for that young continent, which will endure as long as my faculty of memory itself endures." Four months later the hand that penned those lines was stilled forever.

It was his connection with the Otago that prompted him to write in a reminiscence:  "It lies in me to confess at last . . . that I have been all my life -- all my two lives -- the spoiled adopted child of Great Britain, and even of the Empire; for it was Australia that gave me my first command."

His first visit, to Australia -- 1879 -- was as an able-bodied seaman on the Duke of Sutherland, sometimes called the Iron Duke, and it was on her docks that he kept watch night after night as she lay in Sydney Harbour. His impressions were mentally stored up, and recorded in "The Mirror of the Seas" many years later. His second visit the following year was on the Loch Etive, of which he was third officer. In his "Last Essays" he relates how, whilst at sea on Christmas Day on the first-mentioned clipper, they prepared a keg to hold some old "Heralds" and other papers for a Yankee whaler they sighted. It was in the Southern Ocean, latitude 51, and the whaler, they learnt, was two years out from New York, and two hundred and fifteen days on the cruising ground. "We passed," he writes, "sailing slowly, within a hundred yards of her; and just as our steward started ringing the breakfast bell, the captain and I held aloft. In good view of the figures watching us over her stern, the keg, properly headed up and containing, besides an enormous bundle of old newspapers, two boxes of figs in honour of the day. We flung it far out over the rail. Instantly our ship, sliding down the slope of a high swell, left it far behind in our wake. On hoard the Alaska a man in a fur cap flourished an arm; another, a much be-whiskered person, ran forward suddenly. I never saw anything so ready and so smart as the way that whaler, rolling desperately all the time, lowered one of her boats. The Southern Ocean went on tossing the two ships like a juggler his gilt balls, and the microscopic white speck of the boat seemed to come into the game instantly, as if shot out from a catapult on the enormous and lonely stage. That Yankee whaler lost not a moment in picking up her Christmas present from the English wool clipper. . . . She dipped her ensign in thanks, and asked to be reported 'All well, with a catch of three fish.'"

Conrad's visit to Australia as chief mate of the Torrens, under Captaln Cope, was not only his last to Australia, but the return voyage marked the end of his sea-faring career. The Torrens, after a chequered life, was broken up at Genoa in 1910.

Meanwhile Conrad worked out his literary career. "Twenty-four Conrads." a friend said to him one day, as he looked at a row of volumes. "I must make it a round twenty five," said Conrad, but the twenty-fifth was, alas, the unfinished "Suspense."

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 March 1929

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor Regarding Mrs. Campbell Praed

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.  

Sir, - Your sub-leader of to-day, "A Literary Pioneer," is most interesting to one who in the past has read the novels of Mrs Campbell Praed, and other Australian literary pioneers. This clever author might easily write descriptions, said in her day to be unsurpassed, of the scenery of her native land, for she was reared amongst the mountains of southern Queensland, where exists some of the finest and most beautiful scenery to be found in Australia. Maroon, the station home of the Murray-Priors, stood close to the mountain of that name, with the peaks of Mt. Barney and the grand castellated cap of Mt. Lindesay not far away.

In the early seventies the poet Brunton Stephens lived for a time with Captain Sherwood's family at Unumgar, a station on the headwaters of the Richmond, and almost under the shadow of Mt. Lindesay. Visits were exchanged between the stations, and it is not improbable that the influence of the cultured Englishman had something to do with shaping the literary destiny of the talented young Australian.

About 1883 Mr. T. L Murray-Prior stayed several days with us at Bentley, on the Richmond. Through news contained in recent letters from England, he was then justifiably proud of the fact that at a dinner party his daughter, our brilliant Australian authoress, had been introduced to the Prince of Wales and taken into dinner by the "grand old man," Gladstone, no less.

I am, etc,

ROBT. L. DAWSON.

Roseville, April 20.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 1935

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

Note: this letter refers to an article I reprinted here last week.

Reprint: A Literary Pioneer

"The first Australian-born novelist of any importance" is the description by Mr. H. M. Green in his "Outline of Australian Literature" of Mrs. Rosa Caroline Mackworth Praed, whose death, at the age of 84 years, has just been announced from London. So passes one of our literary pioneers, and it is fitting that tribute be paid to her memory. Last week his Excellency the Governor, in opening the Australian Authors' Week, declared that the story of Australia's early days and the endeavours of her stout-hearted pioneers afforded a wonderful theme for romance, and it was the life of the seventies and eighties of last century that Mrs. Campbell Praed, as she was generally known, pictured so convincingly. In the same speech the Gover- nor also stated that "a nation, through its literature, becomes self-conscious, realises itself, and finds its soul. The achievements of its authors help to establish it in civilisation, to give it a status, and to command the respect of other nations." Should we therefore not be zealous in remembrance of those literary pioneers who helped to express the spirit of the country through their works, who have built up our literature just as the other pioneers have built up our material civilisation? The authoress who writes a good novel is doing as much for Australia as the settler who raises sheep. In the end, a first-class sonnet is more valuable than the finest merino fleece. In Europe, of course, these truths are recognised, and in France, for instance, the highest honours are paid to writers. The standing of an author is higher than that of the professional or business man. In Australia our scale of values has not yet reached that point of sophistication. Our literary pioneers are neglected. How many to-day, for example, have read "Such is Life" or even know the name of Joseph Furphy? Louis Stone's "Jonah" remained out of print for years until recently republished.

So, too, the name of Mrs. Campbell Praed is probably unfamiliar to this generation. Yet in 1892 Phillip Mennel, in his "Dictionary of National Biography," wrote: "Mrs. Campbell Praed is generally recognised as the most brilliant and successful of Australian novelists. Her descriptions of the scenery of her native land are unsurpassed." Some forty years later, that judgment must be revised; but the work of the Queensland authoress still stands high in our literature. She was not the first woman novelist here. Catherine Spence had written her novels in the fifties, and Ada Cambridge's "Up the Murray" was published in 1877, three years before Chapman and Hall, through the good offices of their reader, one George Meredith, published Mrs. Praed's "An Australian Heroine," which went into edition after edition and made the youthful Australian authoress famous in London. But the first two women novelists were Scotch and English respectively, and their work was not as Australian in spirit as hers. Rosa Caroline Murray Prior was bom in Queensland, and put into her work her experience of social and political life in Brisbane and of the life on the station on Curtis Island, off the Queensland coast, where she lived with her husband, a nephew of the same poet, W. M. Praed, who won the Chancellor's Medal at Cambridge against William Charles Wentworth, who wrote his well-known "Australasia, An Ode" for the occasion.

In London Mrs. Praed wrote some thirty novels, on both Australian and English themes, but it is interesting to note that the Australian ones are the best. Her pictures of the Queensland scene are drawn with truth and spirit, whilst she depicts with touches of humour as well as feeling and understanding the characters of the girls and women of the time, especially those on the stations who in their leisure read romances and dreamed of a wider world beyond the boundary fence. It is interesting to note here that in Australia, as overseas, women writers have excelled in fiction right from our early days. "The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney" is our best Australian novel, and our two finest novelists are "Henry Handel Richardson" and Katherine Susannah Prichard, whilst other women novelists include Brent of Bin Bin, Miles Franklin, M. Barnard Eldershaw, Ethel Turner, and Winifred Birkett. Although not of the same rank as Mrs. Campbell Praed, another Queensland authoress has recently passed in Mrs. Mabel Forrest, who wrote romances and short stories as well as the verse for which she is best known in this State. It is a prophetic coincidence that the last verse of Mrs. Forrest, which was published in the "Herald" only last September, was entitled "Life," and closed with the lines:

Fulness of life I ask, and then

A long, long sleep at last when I am dead,

Yet to the dead writers the living pay their tribute of remembrance, as they look back and watch Australian literature growing in richness and strength.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 April 1935

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

Reprint: Letter to the Editor Regarding Breaker Morant

MARITZ-REBEL AND EXILE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.

Sir, - In an article under the above headings in last Saturday's issue of the "Herald," the following is stated about the "rebel," Maritz: "He died in the same yard and in the same way as did the Australian outlaw, Captain Harry Morant, in the Boer War, 14 years before." This assertion contains three mis-statements in as many words.

Morant was not an Australian, he was an Englishman, who came to this country for "colonial experience." He knocked about on stations breaking-in horses (hence his nom-de-plume of "The Breaker," under which he published verse). At the time of the Boer War he enlisted, in the ranks, in an Australian regiment, and when this was disbanded he joined the Irregular Corps (not raised in his country, but by Lord Kitchener in South Africa, for guerilla warfare purposes), called the "Bush Veld Carbineers," in which he obtained a commission as a lieutenant (he was never a "captain.") The late Major Lenehan was placed in command of the regiment, but the detachment with which Morant served was taken out of the command of Major Lenehan and placed under that of a certain "Captain" Taylor, under special order of Lord Kitchener, and for service in the far north of the Transvaal. There Morant distinguished himself, but was afterwards arrested, and, with others, court-martlalled, for "shooting Boer prisoners." Morant at the trials declared that he received those orders from his friend and superior officer. Captain Hunt, who was also an Englishman, and commissioned for special service with Captain Taylor, and who had been killed by the Boers under rather tragic circumstances. Morant averred that until Captain Hunt was thus killed, he (Morant) refused to carry out those "no prisoners" orders, but that after Hunt's death he decided that he would carry them out. In the circumstances, the court strongly recommended Morant and all the accused to mercy, but Lord Kitchener ordered him and another to be shot at 24 hours' notice.  Morant, however, was neither an "outlaw" nor a "rebel" (like Maritz). Why these loose statements are made 20 years after Morant was placed in his grave (in Pretoria cemetery) it is difficult to understand. The true story of the Bush Veld Carbineers has never been told, but perhaps some day it will be.

A remarkable fact in connection with those courtsmartial is this: Before Capt. Hunt, who was sent from Pretoria with reinforcements for Captain Taylor's detachment, certain Boer prisoners wore shot, but with those Morant had nothing whatever to do, and was not present - in fact if I remember rightly, he went to join Taylor along with Hunt. Taylor was in supreme command of this special detachment, both before and after the arrival of Hunt and Morant, and, though a charge was preferred against him in connection with these previous shootings, there was no conviction. Morant, the junior officer, and another, junior to Morant, were shot, whilst Taylor was acquitted.

As I defended all the accused, I, perhaps, know more about the facts than anyone else.

I am, etc.

J. F. THOMAS.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 June 1923

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

Note: the writer of this letter was protrayed by Jack Thompson in the 1980 film Breaker Morant, directed by Bruce Beresford.

A. G. STEPHENS.

Sir, - As the second anniversary of the death of A. G. Stephens approaches, those interested in Australian literature would like to see some memorial to this outstanding Australian, Joseph Furphy, with whom the name of Stephens is for all time associated has been recently remembered by a tablet. Something of the kind might be erected by subscription to Furphy's contemporary. A. G. Stephens is admittedly our most notable critic. He was independent, percipient, original, witty, and had a true perspective of the relation of Australian literature to its parent stores, as well as vision and enthusiasm regarding its indigenous importance and achievement. His credo for critics is expressed in a passage in his last booklet, "Chris Brennan": - "When a critic denies or delays due praise of good work, or due blame of bad work, because an author is not or is a blood-brother or a sodality-member, then his justice is clouded, his arc is tarnished, and his criticism is shamed."  

I am, etc.,

Sydney, April 3. MILES FRANKLIN.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 April 1935

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

Reprint: Lawson and Music by Keith Kennedy

A Shearer Violinist

It is not usual to associate Henry Lawson with the musical art, his works being more reminiscent of the cracking of stockwhips, and the creak of the mining windlass. Having Gipsy blood in his veins, however, it is not surprising to find that he was profoundly affected by melody and harmony. Exotic music of the studio did not appeal to him, nor the cheap tunes of revue and musical comedy: he preferred the old folk songs, sung and played around camp fires. In mining camps, on outback farms, and wherever pioneers and adventurers gather.

Of all musical instruments Lawson preferred the violin - his Gipsy blood would account for that, the violin being the instrument of the wanderer. I have the good fortune to be possessed of a violin that formerly belonged to one of Lawson's mates. On the back of it is inscribed "To my mate, Perce Cowan and his violin, with gratitude for light in dark hours - Henry Lawson." Cowan was a shearer, and, many years ago, he and Lawson were often together "on the wallaby." When the war broke out, Cowan enlisted, and went to the front. After the Armistice he returned, and, in Sydney, renewed his friendship with Lawson. Another returned soldier who was a close friend of both Lawson and Cowan is Douglas Grant, a highly educated Queensland aborigine. Douglas is the only one of the three now living. On being shown the violin he greeted it as an old friend, and told how he and Cowan, with the violin, used to go over to where Lawson lived in North Sydney, when Cowan would play, while Lawson sat at the table and wrote. With tears in his eyes, Douglas vividly described the little room, even going into such details as an old newspaper being spread on the table in lieu of a cloth.

Charming a Snake

Some time back In the 'nineties, Lawson wrote a short story on an incident that occurred when he and Cowan were "on the track." Although I searched through the back numbers of papers and journals in which his works were usually published, I could not find the story, but its salient points were related to me by one who had read it. As far as he could recollect, it was as follows:

Lawson and Cowan were carrying their swags out Cobar way, when, as evening came on, they met a couple of men, also on the tramp, who informed them that there was a deserted hut not far ahead, but warned them not to camp there, as a snake had made its home under the flooring. When the mates reached the hut, they agreed that it would be just the place in which to spend the night if it were not for the snake, so they decided to try and kill it. But how? The usual bush method of enticing it out by placing a saucer of milk near its home was not practicable, owing to the simple fact that they had no milk. At last Lawson had a great idea. He told Cowan to get his violin, and charm the snake out. Cowan unpacked his violin, rosined his bow, and struck up "Annie Laurie," while Lawson, armed with a stick, stood by ready to despatch the reptile if it put its head out. Whether the snake was lured out In this way my informant could not remember, but I hope some day to read the conclusion of the yarn in some old newspaper file.

The monument to Lawson in the Outer Domain is a monument also to the spirit of Australia as portrayed by literature. Unfortunately, the sister art of music has not developed in a similar national manner, unless the swagman's song, "Waltzing Matilda." could be claimed as such. Now, however, that the flood of imported sentimental songs and jazz is declining, there is a chance of something expressing the true soul of the country arising from where all such music comes - from the people of the soil and the open spaces.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 August 1931 

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

Reprint: Widow Sums Up by A. H. C. (Alec H. Chisholm)

DOWN THE YEARS, by Margaret Herron. - Hallcraft, Melbourne.

Since the title of this book means nothing in particular, the subject would not be immediately apparent if it were not for the fact that the dust-jacket (which is no place for a sub-title) carries the words in small type, "The Life Story of C. J. Dennis, as told by his wife."  

That announcement, in fact, is somewhat misleading, for the narrative has too many gaps, and in general is much too slight, to be regarded as "the" life-story, or even "a" life-story, of its subject. It might well have been strengthened by a few illustrations, a bibliography, and perhaps a chapter or two of reminiscence by Dennis's competent artist associate, Hal Gye.

Presumably, "Down The Years" is the outcome of a resolution reached soon after the death of Dennis, when a memorial committee commissioned his widow to write a 'life." That was 15 years ago. In the meantime much material discussing the writings and character of "Den" has been published, and thus a number of the points made in this book , such as those dealing with the origin of "The Sentimental Bloke," are not new.

Necessarily, however - necessarily in the case of a widow writing about her husband - the little volume contains, in certain parts of its 88 pages of wifely chatter, various fragments that are fresh and interesting.

Among these items are one or two brief notes from Henry Lawson, some amusing personal impressions of Dennis's lavender and-lace aunts, and a frank account of how the author reacted to the desire of her versatile husband to keep at different times a household cow and a few prize fowls.

Various comments in the book give rise to a couple of intriguing questions (1) Is a poet's wife the best judge of her husband's character? (2) How much should a widow tell'?

Possibly the reply to the first question should be, "Not necessarily," and to the second, "It all depends..."  

Mrs Dennis's domestic assessments are somewhat forthright. She disputes a suggestion, made by some of "Den's" associates, that he occasionally showed a strain of affectation, but, on the other hand, she declares that his tastes were "always extravagant," that he displayed "primness" at times, and that he had a "casual attitude" and "periods of aloofness" that grew worse in later years.

Whatever may be said of these judgments, mere males who knew "Den" will be on his side in the matter of the cow and the fowls.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 January 1954

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

Reprint: In the Nineties by Dora Wilcox

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.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 August 1931

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

Reprint: Obituary: Mrs. Campbell Praed

LONDON, Nov. 5.

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.

Campbell Praed's biographical page.

Update: the newspaper printed the following the next day:

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.


Reprint: The Australian Author by Laura Bugue Luffman

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.

Reprint: Preface (to Fifty-First Thousand) by C.J. Dennis

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.

Henry Lawson's Foreword for C. J. Dennis

The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke was the first of CJ Dennis's "verse novels" and introduced the Sentimental Bloke, Doreen and Ginger Mick. Lavishly illustrated by Hal Gye (whose larrikin cherubs will be forever linked with The Bloke) it was first published in 1915 by Angus & Robertson of Sydney, with an introduction from Henry Lawson.

Dennis wrote to Henry Lawson in the lead-up to the publication of the first edition and, while I don't have a copy of Dennis's letter, here is Lawson's reply:

[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


And the Foreword, as printed in the first edition, is as follows:

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

"The cabbitch storks or somethink"

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.

Reprint: Ada Cambridge: A Remarkable Woman by A. G. Stephens

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:

   "Strong book and true,  
   One of the few
   That speak in tones
   Which Nature owns --
   That speak in sooth
   The bitter truth."

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

   The red rose flush fades slowly in the west;
   The golden water, basking in the light,
   Pales to clear amber and to silver-white;
   The velvet shadow of a flame-crowned crest
   Lies dark and darker on its shining breast --
   Till lonely mere and isle and mountain-height   
   Grow dim as dreams in tender mist of night,
   And all is tranquil as a babe at rest.
   So still! So calm! Will our llfe's eve come thus!   
   No sound of strife, of labour, or of pain --
   No ring of woodman's axe - no dip of oar.
   Will work be done, and night's rest earned, for us?
   And shall we wake to see sunrise again?
   Or shall we sleep - to see and know no more?

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.

Reprint: Australasian Verse

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.)

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 October 1918

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

Note: I think there is a misprint here and the author actually is referring to William H. Ogilvie, not "W. M.".

A Film Adaptation That Never Was

Following on from yesterday's post about the Australian Book Review's list of the favourite Australian novels, and the second place position of Henry Handel Richardson's novel sequence, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, I came across the following this morning:

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.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 December 1945

Reprint: An Appreciation. Professor J. Le Gay Brereton by Zora Cross

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.

   Deep, sighing whisper in the pine.
      My soul is listening.
   For many, many songs like thine
      The spirit voices sing.

   A secret spot my soul has found
      Where naked she may stand,
   And bathe her in the sea of sound
      That rings the quiet land.

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

   She is sleek and silent and strong and wise,
      And the soothing touch of her soft, cool hand
   Stirs broken thoughts of a home that lies
      In the woods of the western land.

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.]

Reprint: Australian Literature

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.]

Reprint: Australian Films

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.]

Reprint: Australia in London

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:

   Where Harpur lies the rainy streams,
      And wet hill-heads, with hollows weeping,
   Are swift with wind, and white with gleams,  
      And hoarse with sounds of storms unsleeping. . . .

   But now he sleeps, the tired bard,
      The deepest sleep; and lo, I proffer
   These tender leaves of my regard,

      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.]

Reprint: Victor Daley

The late Mr. Victor Daley has suffered many things at the hands of his professed admirers. The world has been told by now one and now another of his intímate friends how he dodged bailiffs here and absorbed much liquid refreshment there. Well, the world is not much interested in such revelations, true or false. It declines to associate pootry with beer, and it has a regard for the poet Daley, not for the companion of thirsty souls. We should be glad to hear something more solid about Victor Daley than is to be found in the enthusiastic vapourings of his boon companions, actual or alleged - boon companions who in their thoughtlessness have done harm to the man's memory. Indeed, Daley might complain of those who had done his fame much wrong, drowned his credit in a shallow cup, and sold his reputation for a song. This something may be found in "Victor Daley: A Biographical and Critical Notice," by A. G. Stephens (The "Bulletin" Newspaper Co.). There is no guidance herein as to the place which Victor Daley will or should occupy in the world of poets. Indeed, the time has not come when the place of Victor Daley may be apportioned amongst the minor bards who scintillate in Australia to the applause of their fellows. Certainly it will be amongst the minor bards, even though his latest biographer declares that his verses represent what he calls "a substantial poetical performance." "In essential poetry," continues Mr. Stephens, "in Australian character, and in some of the components of technical quality he has been surpassed often; yet no other in this country has written so agreeably during so long a period."

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 1906

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

Reprint: Early Australian Women Writers by E. B. H.

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.

Sir, - Mr. W. A. Brennan, in his article which appeared in the Magazine section of "The Argus" last Saturday on "Ashtaroth," a dramatic lyric by A. L. Gordon, a copy of which was presented to the Yorick Club by the author, sums up his analysis of it by saying the the work as a whole is undoubtedly unattractive, but that it is worth studying for the gems that are found in it. He claims that "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."

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

   See Harold the Dane, thou sayest is dead,
      Yet I weep not bitterly,
   As I fled with the Dane, so I might have fled,
      With Hugo of Normandy.

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:

   I pulled the flower and shrunk from the thorn,
   Sought the Sunshine and fled from the mist,
   My sister was born to face hardship with scorn;
   I was born to be fondled and kiss'd.

"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

Note: this letter was written in response to an article titled "A Gordon Momento" written by W.A. Breenan which I published here last week.

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

Project Gutenberg Australia has the full set of Gordon poems.

Reprint: A Gordon Memento by W. A. Brennan

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 -

   See Harold the Dane thou sayest is dead,
   Yet I weep not bitterly
   As I fled with the Dane, so I might have fled
   With Hugo of Normandy.

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.]

Reprint: Mr. Moncure Conway and the Late Mr. Marcus Clarke

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

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

Moncure D. Conway has his own Wikipedia page, as does Marcus Clarke.


Reprint: As Her Poets See Australia by H.W. Malloch

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

   Descend thou also on my native land, 
   And on some mountain-summit take thy stand;
   Thence issuing soon a purer font be seen
   Than charmed Castalia or famed Hippocrene;
   And there a richer, nobler fane arise,
   Than on Parnassus met the adoring eyes.


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

   She is not yet; but he whose ear
   Thrills to that finer, atmosphere
      Where footfalls of appointed things,
      Reverberant of days to be
      Are heard in forecast echoings,
         Like wave-beats from a viewless sea --
   Hears in the voiceful tremors of the sky
   Auroral heralds whispering, "She is nigh."


There is a fine national sentiment
in every line of James Lister Cuthbertson. "Australia Federata," because Australia has gone, and is still going, through the trials and tribulations the poet considered essential for a national spirit:

   Australia! land of lonely lake
      And serpent-haunted fen;
   Land of the torrent and the fire and fire-sundered men:
   Thou art now as thou shalt be
      When the stern invaders come,
   In the hush before the hurricane,
      The dread before the drum.

      .   .   .   .   .

   A louder thunder shall be heard
      Than echoes on thy shore,
   When o'er the blackened basalt cliffe
      The foreign cannon roar --
   When the stand is made in the sheoaks' shade
      When heroes fall for thee,
   And the creeks in gloomy gullies run
      Dark crimson to the sea:

      .   .   .   .   .

   Then, only then - when after war
      Is peace with honour born,
   When from the bosom of the night
      Comes golden-sandalled morn,
   When laurelled victory is thine,
      And the day of battle done,
   Shall the heart of a mighty people stir,
      And Australia be as one.


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

   We boast no more of our bloodless flag, that rose from a nation's slime;
   Better a shred of a deep-dyed rag from the storms of the olden time.
   From grander clouds in our "peaceful skies" than ever were there before
   I tell you the Star of the South shall rise - in the lurid clouds of 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:

   All that we love in olden lands and lore
      Was signal of her coming long ago!
   Bacon foresaw her, Campanella, More,
      And Plato's eyes were with her star aglow!
   Who toiled for Truth, whate'er their countries were,
      Who fought for Liberty, they yearned for her!
   No corsair's gathering ground, nor tryst for schemers,
      No chapman Carthage to a huckster Tyre,
   She is the Eldorado of old dreamers,
      The Sleeping Beauty of the World's dawn!


First published in The Argus, 14 October 1944

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

Reprint: The Libretto of "Moustique" by Henri Kowalski

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."

I am, &c, H. KOWALSKI.

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.]

Reprint: Amusements: "Moustique" at the Opera House

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.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 July 1889

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.]

Reprint: "Moustique" at the Opera House

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.]

Reprint: Review of "Around the Boree Log" by C. J. Dennis

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aroundboreelog_small.jpg    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."

Yet, in spite of what they lack, John O'Brien's verses may be greatly admired and well praised for what they are. They are Australian first - bush-Australian, and not just city-Australian, which, in its better qualities at least, is much like city-anywhere-else. They are Irish-Australian, of course. These Hanrahans and Callaghans and McEvoys could hardly be anything else: tenderhearted, sunny-tempered, loyal and pious children of "little Irish mothers." But they are pure Australian too: good mates, good workers, full of a healthy humor and a capacity for enjoyment that most of the world just now seems to have lost. They are very faithful pictures that John O'Brien presents; and many a reader, who remembers well his country town with its "Church upon the Hill" and its "Father Pat" and its "Young O'Neil," who

   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

Reprint: On Memory's Shelves by B.M.

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.]

Reprint: Letter to the Editor: Mr. Marcus Clarke on Tasmania

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THE EDITOR OF THE MERCURY.

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.

Reprint: "Steele Rudd" Dead

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.]

Reprint: Misprints: The Deeds of Printers' Devils by Nettie Palmer

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."
Here there is also a little liberty taken with the pronunciation, but this is perhaps pardonable, as also is the extra fut in the second line. The delicate allusion to that fierce animal, the Gorilla, which is so much dreaded by the hon. member, cannot be too highly appreciated, and that noble disinterested-ness which prompts the hon. member "madly daring to let him in, that they might have to put him out agin" must claim the admiration of every lover of fair play.


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

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

Reprint: A Round with Kipling by C. J. Dennis

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

Reprint: Hermannsburg Mission: More Authors Assist

Autographed Copies Sell Quickly

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/.

First published in The Argus, 2 March 1934

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

This piece follows on from two letters to the editor of The Argus, firstly from William Hatfield and then from AEneas Gunn, that were published here over the past two weeks.

Reprint: Henry Kingsley: Novelist's Australian Years: Appeal for a Monument

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.]

Reprint: Mrs. Aeneas Gunn's Help

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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.

Reprint: Classic Authors: Mrs Aeneas Gunn

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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

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

Notes: The Little Black Princess was first published in 1905, We of the Never Never was first published in 1908.

I especially like the note here that the printing plates had "to be melted down for use as ammunition during the war".

Reprint: Mr. Hatfield's Gift

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

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

Notes: William Hatfield (1892 - 1969), whose original name was Ernest Chapman, wrote seven novels for adults, three for children and a number of non-fiction works, including Australia Through the Windscreen.

 

Reprint: Henry Lawson Warned Us of This by Denton Prout

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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.]

Reprint: Mr. "Banjo" Paterson: Arrival in Melbourne

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.]

Reprint: We Really Like Common-Place People by Jean Campbell

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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?

Reprint: Joseph Furphy Memorial

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. 

Reprint: Obituary: The Late Mr Charles Harpur

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.

Reprint: A Letter to the Editor of The Argus by Nettie Palmer

GORDON'S VERSE

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.

Reprint: An Australian Anthology: Mediocrity in One Volume

"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. 

Reprint: Obituary - Mr. T. A. Browne (Rolfe Boldrewood)

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.

Reprint: "The Banjo's" Poems

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 --
was more than a match for experienced stockmen of more imposing stature and greater age, for --
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.

Small wonder that lines such as these should stir the hearts of men who recognise in them scenes from their own lives and moments of enthusiasm.

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.
We might go on quoting indefinitely from the other half-hundred poems in the book without wearying our readers, but justice to the author and the publisher requires a halt. It is sufficient to say that there is many an hour's delight in "The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses" for everyone who loves the Australian bush and bush life. But we would fain give one closing extract, from "Clancy of the Overflow," as an admirable picture of the romantic side of the drover's life--
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.
"The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses;" by A. B. Paterson. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. London: Y. J. Pentland.

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.

Reprint: Obituary - Henry Kingsley

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.

Reprint: Tendencies of Australian Literature

| 2 Comments

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?

Reprint: Australian Novels: Two £500 Prizes Awarded

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.]

Reprint: A Fair Pioneer: Jennings Carmichael by Henry Tate

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."
Her word-pictures of the bush are notable for truthful suggestion peeping through her choice of tranquil moods.
"The dreamful distances, where blue mist fills
   The bushy spaces. . . ."
And again:-
"The ranges haunted by a wraith of rain
When lightwood flowers."
The heat of a summer evening is deftly suggested in --
"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."
Here the word-glimpse of the fences, seems to throw a glamour over the whole stanza.

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."
Among the birds the kookaburra is one of her favourites. She finds something better than "ghastly mockery" in his resonant challenge.
"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!"
She notices where he goes.
"The barren, broken limb is thine by choice."
and is gently philosophical concerning his abode:
"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!"
Like all imaginative Australians, she finds and yearns towards a new music in the bush -- a music deeper than externals, and yet impregnated with the natural sounds of the hills and gullies.
"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."
She hears
"Delicate airs and harmonies pass,
   Subtle and swift, through the bowing grass."
She has left us many of these pictures, much of this music, culled in those more innocent years, and it is pleasant to think of her roaming along some
'"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."
Jennings Carmichael began a successful series of lectures on "The Spirit of the Bush," at the Masonic Hall, Melbourne, in 1895. Some Melbourne citizens still remember that evening. The slender, youthful charm of the poetess, her earnestness, and the interest that her personality lent to the pictures she unfolded of the beauties of the Australian bushland, remained as a vivid memory long after the untimely mists of Fate had descended upon the white gowned figure, and the sweet voice sang no more.

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.

Reprint: Racing Poetry

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.
No poet has ever drawn a picture more true to nature, but Gordon had a thorough knowledge of his subject as well as an enthusiastic love of the sport which he describes, which enabled him, even more than Whyte Melville, to bring to the eye of the reader the scene he thus portrays. And moreover, in the stanza which describes the finish of the race --
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 --
-- one can imagine the two horses coming up the straight and the excitement of the struggle culminating as the winning horse forges first past the post, and the numbers proclaiming the result to the multitude are hoisted amid breathless silence --
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.
In his verses, however, it will be seen that Gordon invariably regarded the turf from its most favourable aspect. It was the race itself, the struggle for supremacy between horses, that he loved to record; but the dark and tortuous ways of turf diplomacy he wisely leaves altogether on one side; and the only time he refers to it he shows his distaste for the subject in the following verse:
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 the hunting poetry of Whyte Melville, the same enthusiastic love of the horse for his own sake is observable. In his prose works indeed, as for instance, in "Digby Grand," Melville describes incomparably all the various episodes connected with racing in a true and graphic manner; but he, like Gordon, reserves his poetry to commemorate the performances of some equine favourite, or the deeds of some noted champion on the racecourse or in the hunting field. In this the two men are identical; both have ridden their rides as well as written about them, and both are animated with the feeling that Gordon expresses --
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.
While Whyte Melville speaks of the death of a favourite in lines which express something of the same idea:
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.
As poets, however, there can be no comparison between the two men. Whyte Melville when he left prose and took to verse was distanced by the more dashing Australian writer whose genuine poetic instinct, combined with a keen perception, places him on a par with the most celebrated of our more recent poets. Of all Whyte Melville's songs "The Clipper that Stands in the Stall at the Top" has perhaps more of the ring which marks Gordon's poetry, though such lines as--
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 --
show an equally keen appreciation of the enjoyment of the gallop which Gordon expresses by --
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.
It must be esteemed a great misfortune to racing as a sport that Gordon's unhappy and untimely death deprived the world of any more of his stirring racing lyrics, which not only tend to make the sport more popular for its own sake, but bring into prominence the real object of the turf, and the pleasure which may be derived from it, both of which seem at times to be almost totally obscured by the mercenary motive with which racing nowadays is conducted. Anything that tends to elevate the turf in the eyes of the public and to increase its popularity, independent of the totalisator and the betting ring, is to be welcomed with gratitude, and few people can read " How We Beat the Favourite" without some genuine sporting interest being excited in their breast, and without feeling some interest in the struggle so graphically related. Thus it is, the poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon, described by him to his English compeer, Whyte Melville, as --
Rhymes rudely strung, with intent less
   Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
   And songless bright birds,
are now, years after his death, just coming into notice in his native land. The recent numbers of the Sporting and Dramatic News hold notices all more or less complimentary on his poems, and, as a consequence, they will probably come under general observation in the old country. There they will certainly be welcomed and eagerly read ; for there, at least, are many kindred spirits who will agree with him --
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.
First published in The Brisbane Courier, 19 June 1885

[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"

Reprint: A War Correspondent in Peace

"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.]

Reprint: The Yorick 2. - Letters of Marcus Clarke Part 2

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.

Reprint: The Poet Gordon and Marcus Clarke

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.]

Reprint: The Yorick 2. - Letters of Marcus Clarke Part 1

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.

Reprints: The Banning of Redheap by Norman Lindsay

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."

Reprint: A Literary Group: Melbourne 60 Years Ago by Nettie Palmer

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?
George Gordon McCrae.

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.
Before the end of 1870 Gordon was to declare his assets at 1/ and put a bullet through his brain. Kendall died some years later exhausted by the struggle. Clarke, barely 35, died in 1880, his death being directly due to a succession of financial troubles, not wholly his own, with which he ought never to have been burdened. The fact is that the literary group had not recognised the nature of the plutocracy in which it lived. Money was to them an unnecessary evil, a matter for jest or for despair. When it was a jest, they formed a new club, the Cave of Adullam; "to this only a very select body of members was admitted, the selectness in this case necessitating that a member should be happily impecunious, and, if possible, be hunted by the myrmidons of the law.'' When it was not a jest - well, we can follow the actual brief lives, and the deaths, of Gordon, Kendall, and Clarke.

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.]

Reprint: Book Censorship: Minister Rejects Requests

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.]

Reprint: Australia and Men He Sang

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

Reprint: Book Censorship: Attack by Authors: Australian Methods Denounced

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.

Reprint: Our Secret Books: A Visitor's Dilemma by Vance Palmer

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.]

Reprint: The Maligned Publisher

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.]

Reprint: Poetry Made to Order

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.]

Reprint: Australian Literature

"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.]

Reprint: A Halting Pegasus

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.
The verse went on to explain that the defendant (Mr. A. E. Jones, solicitor and barrister) through not carrying out certain instructions had made the plaintiff lose £40. Two authorities were quoted by the plaintiff in blank verse to support a certain contention, and then he proceeded to outline his case once more in verse.

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.]

Reprint: Such was Life for Joseph Furphy

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.]

Reprint: An Australian Literary Melba?

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

Reprint: Obituary: Mr. Guy Boothby

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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.]

Reprint: Araluen Kendall by F. W. Hosken

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"We were young when you were with us, life and love were happy things
To your father and your mother, ere the angels gave you wings" - ( Kendall )

The recent death in Sydney of Charlotte Kendall, the widow of the poet Henry Kendall, and her burial in the grave where he lies in Sydney, recalls the fact that their first child, Araluen, who died in 1870, aged 13 months lies buried in a neglected grave in the Melbourne General Cemetery. The story of the sickness and death of this little child who was named after the New South Wales stream whose beauty always lingered in the poet's memory, and whose death inspired one of his most beautiful and pathetic poems provides one of the saddest pages of Kendall's life. In 1860 he migrated from Sydney to Melbourne hoping that away from dissolute companions he might successfully battle against his inherited weakness for drink, and trusting also as Melbourne was at that date much larger than Sydney, that he might find more scope and encouragement for literary work. He received so hearty a welcome that a fortnight later he sent for his wife and baby daughter. A home was secured opposite the Carlton gardens, and for a time his prospects were bright. Mr George Robertson heartened him by arranging the publiation of "Leaves from an Australian Forest," the appearance of which was afterwards described by Alexander Sutherland as "one of the most memorable events in Australian literature." He found many who, through admiration of his genius were anxious to assist him, and numerous poems from his pen appeared in the columns of "The Argus," "The Australasian," and other Melbourne papers. The income thus derived, however, was fitful, and his peculiar temperament and unsteady habits precluded his engaging either in ordinary journalistic work or other constant employment. He was soon forced to leave the Carlton house, and moved with his wife and sickly baby, first to a cheap tenement in Fitzroy, and then to a still cheaper one in Collingwood. Bowed down by poverty, disappointment, and anxiety, all his good resolves melted away. He became more and more unsteady, less capable of work and ultimately the wretched family were forced to hide their heads in a tiny cottage in Swan street, Richmond, where little Araluen, notwithstanding the assiduous attention of Dr Nield, after much suffering died on February 2, 1870. Mrs Kendall afterwards said that the wailing notes of the dying child haunted her husband throughout all the rest of his life. He wrote -
"In dreams I always meet
The phantom of a wailing child."
The poverty stricken poet was unable to pay for his child's burial, and in his reminiscences he wrote -
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.
Little Araluen was buried in what was then known as "No Mans Land," in the north east corner of the Melbourne General Cemetery, near the corner of Lygon and Macpherson streets. Lovers of the poet know well the pathetic, heart-broken farewell of the parents to the little grave.
"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."
Alas, the little grave has remained untended ever since. It has recently been traced by Mr. Goddard, a member of the Australian Literature Society who discovered that in the same allotment are buried no fewer than 10 other little pauper babies, their ages ranging from 10 days to 10 months. I would suggest that lovers of Kendall in Melbourne might well undertake the responsibility of putting the grave in order, and erecting a simple marble tablet on the grave of his so dearly loved and mourned baby girl, and so fulfil the heart-longing of the poet when he wrote:-
"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."
First published in The Argus, 22 November 1924 [Thanks to the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project for this piece.]

Reprint: Honour Her: Queensland's Poetess: Our Unofficial Laureate

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

Reprint: Gordon's Earliest Works

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.

Reprint: Among the "Shockers": Mr. Fergus Hume's Vogue

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.

Reprint: Poems by Charles Harpur: General Introduction

[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.

Reprint: "At Dawn and Dusk"

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."

Mr. Daley need not fear that his dreams have passed away in darkness. They will be cherished in Australia in the years to be. Their charm is not of the evanescent order. Those who read the book will be particularly impressed with the beauty of "Years Ago," a very musical and very touching set of verses. They are truly "Love-lyrics delicate as lilac scent." "The Nightingale" may be similarly classed. The closing verse of it is very beautiful:
"Fades the moonlight golden-pale,
   And the bird has ceased to sing --
Ah, it was no nightingale,
   But my heart-remembering."
"A Vision of Youth" is a remarkably clever and fanciful piece of work, and so is "Neaera's Wreath." "Sixty to Sixteen" is also good, but is discounted somewhat by being so strongly reminiscent of Swinburne's song "If". "The Dead Child" is a very fine piece of work, full of genuine sentiment; and "The Martyr" is similarly commendable. In "Love-laurel" Mr. Daley lays a tribute on the tomb of Henry Kendall, which those who knew that poet's work and life history will keenly appreciate. Here is one stanza:
"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."
The book, we repeat, is worthy of a place in our literature. Victor J. Daley is one of the singers Australia will remember.

* 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.

Reprint: Australian Poets

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.
But the South African war is ancient history to many, and even Essex Evans, though he died only in 1909, a prophet though he was, is no longer a poet of Australia of to-day. Can I give you, in my brief time, any specimen of the poetry that really belongs to what the French call "the hour that is?" What is Australia like to-day in peace and in war, at home and in the field? What do her best leaders wish her to be and what is she? Let me take some very different utterances. One thing she certainly is - imperial. She went into this fight, heart and soul. She has achieved heroic and poetic deeds. Such was the victorious fight of the Sydney with the Emden. Such was the unvictorious but heroic and tragic landing at Gallipoli. Read it in the Thucydidean narrative of the English poet, Mr. Masefield. Read it in "The Landing in the Dawn - Anzac Day," by John Sandes, of the "Sydney Daily Telegraph." Her leaders, and her poets, sacred and secular, have given her their message.

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.]

Reprint: A Woman at the War

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.]

Reprint: Why Gordon Became a Poet by C.R. Long

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."
Stevens was the rider of five Grand National winners. At many a convivial evening, one may be sure, young Gordon's talent for verse-making, fostered in a home of culture, and probably practised at the Woolwich Military Academy and the Worcester Grammar School, both of which he had attended, would be called into requisition. Hence came the incentive to compose "Galloping Rhymes." One at least of them he considered worth preserving. It begins with the lines which possess the true Gordon ring and voice the true Gordon sentiment.
"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."
The emotions caused by the thought of being exiled in circumstauces the reverse of creditable were the stimulus to the composition of another kind of verse, the lines "To My Sister," filled with echoes of his favourite poet, Byron, and expressive, of recklessness and defiance --
    "My hopes are gone, my time is spent,
   I little heed their loss,
And, if I cannot feel content,
   I cannot feel remorse."
Some years, barren of poetic effort, had gone by in South Australia, during which he carried out the duties of a mounted policeman, and subsequently a horse-breaker, when, as if it were destined that his talent should not remain unused, there came in his way a man of discernment and sympathy, the Rev. E. J. Tenison Woods, a Roman Catholic priest, who overcame the young man's reticence and gained his confidence. Encouragement to write followed with the loan of books, among them Horace's "Ara Poetica," which Gordon, who had a remarkably retentive memory, learned by heart. In his leisure, which was scant, Gordon read voraciously, and occasionally he composed verses, but he published nothing.

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."
A couple of years saw a change for the worse in Gordon's position. In 1868 he was struggling to earn a living by keeping a livery stable at Ballarat, and he was afflicted by both bodily and mental pain. Poetry went out of his life. Before the end of the year, however, he had sold the business and removed to Melbourne. There the gloom of his existence was lifted for a time by the appreciation and friendship of several sporting and literary men, among them F. W. Haddon, editor at that time of "The Australasian," and afterwards editor of "The Argus" for 30 years, Marcus Clarke, George Gordon McCrae, Dr. J. E. Neild, Henry Kendall, Robert and Herbert Power, and Major Baker. Milton wrote long ago:
"Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
To scorn delights and live laborious days."
Amid the training of horses and the riding of steeplechasers the longing came to Gordon again to express his thoughts and emotions in verse.

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."
The student, examining Gordon's output of verse, and meditating on how it came to be written, fails, alas! to find any incentive strong enough to overcome the anxiety of mind and pain of body that afflicted him henceforth till the end. He apparently wrote no more after his visit to the Riddochs, though he had, fortunately, energy enough left to collect and prepare for the press the poems that form the volume "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift," published the day before his self-inflicted death. Let us be thankful to those discerning and sympathetic men who supplied the impulse and conditions that caused this reckless man to employ the poetic faculty which had been entrusted to him.

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.

Reprint: Australian Authors' Week

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.]

Reprint: Story at Inquest: Bones Found in Fire

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.]

Reprint: Mr. Edward Dyson

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.]

Reprint: Australian Essays

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.

Reprint: Our Australian Poets: Charles Harpur by F.

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.
No Australian library should be without the works of Charles Harpur.

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.]

Reprint: Henry Kendall by G.B.

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.
Mountains, whether seen in their mightiness with "the royal robes of morning" on their heads, or with broken lights upon their gorges and streams, were always an inspiration to Kendall, and the address "To a Mountain," which prefaced his second book, is one of the finest pieces of blank verse written in Australia. Though he also sings of "the grand hosanna of the sea," he has but little affection for it, perhaps the result of the two unhappy years he spent on his uncle's brig. In his journalistic days Kendall wrote some humorous verse, and though he did not care for horse racing, he also wrote "How the Melbourne Cup was Won," but he was much more in his element when singing of the running of a mountain stream among shadowy boulder-strewn ways. In the memorial lines on Adam Lindsay Gordon he speaks of his fellow-poet's work as having "the deep autumnal, half-prophetic tone of forest winds in March." The same may be said of Kendall's own poetry. Through the best of it is a note of disappointment and regret. He was a man of a somewhat melancholy mood, and this has been accenuated by his early sorrows and the tribulation of his later years. "Some men grow strong with trouble," but it was not so with Kendall, and even in the poems, written in his happiest times, there are sounds of "strong authentic sorrow."

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.]

Letter from C.J. Dennis to The Argus

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.

Reprint: Readers and Writers by Nettie Palmer

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."
In this light way, with an imagination all the more powerful for being fantastic, we are made to feel trench warfare at its dullest and weariest. It is in the restrained humour of a piece like this that Mr. Dennis's creative faculties find their fullest scope.

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.

How I Began to Write by Rolf Boldrewood (Part 2)

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

How I Began to Write by Rolf Boldrewood (Part 1)

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,
as Mr. Barton Paterson ("Banjo") has it, in "The Two Devines," more than twenty years later, challenge attention. This was accepted. I received a cheque in due course. This came at a time when such remittances commenced to have more interest for me than had been the case for many years past.

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.]

The Tin Wreath: A Pierian Publican

[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

The Tin Wreath: A Pained Protest by Nitty ARÆMO

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 Tin Wreath: The Poet of Politics

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 Tin Wreath by Kahuna

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."

As there appears to have been only sufficient surplus hardware to make only one wreath, and as that has been well and truly laid on the noble brow of Roderic Quinn, let us offer consolation to les autres; for, as the Scripture sayeth: "Many are called, but few get up."

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 Dinkum Bloke by C.J. Dennis

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.]

Low and Den by Alec Chisholm

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 . . .

Moreover - and this brings Low into the local picture - the second set of rhymes of Ingavar introduces some very odd birds of the area, among them the Davlo Owl, the Halgi Tit and the ruthless Denawk. The "song" opens thus:-
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 rhymes run on through half-a-dozen other verses, reaching an end on this high note:-
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!
Clearly, when Den proclaimed Roberts's Ingavar to the spot "where the Davlo Owl is found" he gave the impression that this distinctive creature was a regular denizen of the area. That was slightly misleading. Any list of the "birds" of both Sunnyside and Ingavar, it would appear, should record the Davlo Owl only as what ornithologists term a "casual".

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.

Low and Den by Alec Chisholm

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!
Neither in THE BULLETIN nor the leaflet (nor, indeed, in any of the later issues of "The Australaise") did Low's adjective appear. Discreetly enough, Den left that matter to his readers, as witness his footnote to the 1915 issue:-
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.
Because unbound publications of some few pages soon fall asunder, that one-page "Marching Song" is now very rare. Personally, I have seen only a single copy, and I considered myself lucky to locate and borrow that one for use as an illustration in my Dennis biography of 1946, The Making of the Sentimental Bloke.

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".

Extract from Low's Autobiography by David Low

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.
But he was then deep in the planning of a volume, The Sentimental Bloke, which was to bring him wide fame and an honoured place in Australian poetry. Meanwhile Den filled in as a civil servant complete with two-inch starched collar and vest slip, an effect quite unsuited to his bony-nosed Roman face.

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

Edward Dyson by McD

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.
It is an easy thought that the influence responsible for that kind of word-spinning is indicated in what he wrote, apropos of himself, in 1912:-
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...
like Trollop's more historic one, a rather risky revelation. But the fact is that in this book that style is inherent. If it were not; if it were written on the quantity-pays principle only, it would almost certainly have been pruned on the way from newspaper columns to book; though there may be an indication that Dyson was a little careless of his work in the fact that in one story in this same book there is a fight over a barmaid, and then the first fight over her is described as happening several pages further on. But, for all the diffuseness and the shakiness of most of the narrative, the book is rich in a specific Australian atmosphere as any other collection of sketches outside Lawson.

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.

There is direct action and ginger in it, as there is also in the incident of most of these stories, which altogether, and in one instance in particular ("A Question of Propriety"), present a picture of Australian factory life of very uncommon clearness, and, for all its caricatures, of fine human truth. For Fact'ry 'Ands alone Dyson deserves to be remembered -- that is, read -- gratefully by Australia for at least a little longer.

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.]

Writing the Vernacular by James Devaney

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.
Dyson's matter, his invention and his humor are first class, and he does perhaps get the Australian drawl, but that sort of vernacular throughout would damn any book.

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 Literature of the Bush by Jack Hardgraft

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.]

Reprint: The Art of the Short Story by Vance Palmer

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.

Reprint: Goodbye Sunnyside by R.H. Croll

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.

The Poet Who Brought the Sun by C.J. Dennis

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.

The Yorick: 1 - Gordon and his Friends by Hugh McCrae

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

So Life Mooches On by F.W. Boreham

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.
Ashamed

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.
In his brief, but excellent biography of Dennis, Mr. A.H. Chisholm tells us that this episode is really autobiographical, being based on the welcome extended to Dennis by Mrs. Roberts after one of his unhappy lapses. Like Dante, Dennis chants the victory of Love Triumphant. These are the last lines of the book:-
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.
C.J. Dennis has rested for twelve years in his grave at Box Hill, but Australia can ill afford to let him die.

First published in The Age, 9 December 1950

Blast From the Past: When Marcus Clarke Wrote Thrillers by J.P. Quaine

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!"
That once popular penny weekly production, the "London Journal," Clarke never wearied of deriding. This paper specialised in fierce romances of adventuresses, and meek-eyed maidens, of the "Ah me! let me die!" type, who shrank, either in fear or expectancy, from scheming, teeth grinding villians.

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.

"The Sentimental Bloke": An Appreciation of C.J. Dennis

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.
Dennis (in The Moods of Ginger Mick) put it:-
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.

Both Rupert Brooke and C. J. Dennis swept into immense popularity on a wave of war-sentiment; both, therefore, said something which at that time people were asking urgently to hear; and fundamentally, as the above quotations indicate, they had the same thing to say. In a time of flux they stressed the permanence of human values; when reality meant chaos for the individual they offered the consolation and the escape of the common dream. Both in a later age seem sentimentalists, but it should be remembered in their favor that their time demanded a measure of sentimentality from them.

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.
But there is his own, more Australian sense of humor in: -
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.

His satire has lost neither bite nor topicality: -
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.

There is sting, too, in the quatrain: -
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.

Justifiably in war-time, Dennis flattered his public in The Sentimental Bloke. In The Glugs he gently corrected himself: -
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.

In the "Rhymes of Sym," with which the book closes, he states in one stanza the philosophy which is the raison d'être of all his books: The Bloke, Ginger Mick, Rose of Spadgers, Jim of the Hills, Digger Smith and even the birds in The Singing Garden all proclaim:-
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.

With that as the mainspring of his writing, Dennis had the choice of satirising the bad or portraying the good. He chose the latter course:-
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."

Had Dennis continued as a satirist his unquestionable gifts in that direction would have won him fame. Choosing to go "down in the heart," he won both fame and affection, and his brilliance in that chosen genre entitles him to the respect of the severest of his critics. The Sentimental Bloke is full of emotional truth, told with humor that relieves it of sentimentality. The story is universal. There are lines that have become proverbs: "The commin end of most of us is - Tart"; "Livin' and lovin' - so life mooches on." If they, through too-frequent quotation, have become platitudinous - they were never "original," but Dennis did say them in a new way - there is widom and humor in the less-read Doreen or in Rose of Spadgers:-
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.

Throughout Dennis's verse - and his output was large - there are flashes of real poetry among the sentiment, quiet humour and worldly wisdom that are its chief characteristics:-
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.

But as a lover of human nature he wrote better verse than as a lover of nature. BULLETIN readers will have a particularly soft spot for "Den", for it was in these pages that he first dipped his lid to Australia; but there is no need for sentiment to keep his memory alive. His verse, unique in Australian literature, will do that for itself.

First published in the Bulletin, 6 July 1938
Note: C.J. Dennis died on 22 June, 1938.

Laureate of the Larrikin by R.H. Croll

(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,"
although Ingavar was inkless.

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."
His song was "Chow-wite, chow-wite!" - an appropriate noise for a tomtit and an artist.

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.

Reprint: Memory of Marcus Clarke

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

"Adam Lindsay Gordon Memorial Unveiled in Abbey Poets' Corner" by Guy Innes

LONDON, May 17

O, send Lewie Gordon hame,
And the lad I daurne name;
Now his back is to the wa
Here's to him that's far awa'.

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:

"Adam Lindsay Gordon. Poet of Australia.
Born 1833 -- Died
1870."

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."
Having competently sketched Gordon's career, the Archbishop continued:-
"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."

Thus, and with these words, has the memory of Adam Lindsay Gordon come to "stand like stone" in a place where stone and the spirit shall endure; where the strength of stone which it never possessed in life has entered into the presentment of his face amid "the aisles Death's sceptre rules supreme"; where the light of stained glass illumes the
long perspective of pillars and gives denial to what were almost his last words:-
"There is nothing good for me under the sun
But to perish as these things perished."
It may here be said that the work of the Gordon Memorial Committee is worthy of all praise. That it should have been brought to so dignified a conclusion is largely due to the untiring energy of Mr. Douglas Sladen -- who, by the way, was recently awakened at 4 a.m. to receive a cable message from the Gordon Memorial Committee in Melbourne felicitating him as Gordon's Boswell.

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

The Bush Bard and Official Odes

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."
Not long afterwards Kendall wrote a series of cantos for the opening of the Melbourne International Exhibition. These were written for music, and are notable for a bigger share of the poet's own naturalness--

"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."
The poem closes with a deep reverence characteristic of the writer -

"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!"
With slight verbal amendments to suit the occasion and dates, this poem might be recommended to musical composers and the Centenary Committee. There is a beauty of words, thought and imagery in Kendall which can be made an infinitely greater Australian influence. The best of all are the lyrics of nature, some of which have happily found their way into the schoolbooks. They throb with the pulse of the Australian bushland; they limn its beauties with crystal clearness; they are alive with melody. "Bell-Birds," "September in Australia," "After Many Days," "Illa Creek," "Araluen," "Coogee," and a dozen others ought to be "familiar in our mouths as household words."

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

Henry Handel Richardson Death Notice

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

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