It is strange that a people possessed of literary instincts, and of the literary temper, should be without a literature of their own; but so it is. The shadow of a remembered personality does indeed flit now and then across the brief page of Australian history. There was a writer of verses named Lindsay Gordon, and a novelist of repute named Marcus Clarke. Each of these struck out a path for himself. Each left a record that will not soon be forgotten. But neither was a product of the Southern Hemisphere; neither could be described as native, “and to the manner born”; and neither of the two, nor both together, could be credited with creating a literature for the country in which their work was done.
It is true there have been, and there are, others of note. There was a poet who wrote some very fine lines about the yellow-haired September, about waste places of Kerguelen, about lost Lorraines, about a frail, flower-like, dead Araluen, and about much besides. It would argue ignorance of the subject to be unaware that the book of rhymes beginning with an account of the man from “Snowy River” has sold to the extent of 30,000 copies, or more. There is the statement, made on what seems reliable authority, that the author of Our Selection was paid for a continuation of that work the remarkable sum of £500. And Victor Daley was, until a few months ago, alive amongst us. The torch of inspiration is, therefore, not quite gone out. Throughout the continent it flickers and falters, never shining with a steady and continuous flame, rarely giving the wayfarer a light to guide him, but every now and then dancing with a faint, fleeting, will-of-the-wisp quality before his astonished eyes.
He sees a reflection, or he catches an echo, and then he is in the dark.
Of rhymes and storyettes there are any number in Australia. The local printing presses shed them in great profusion. They are more numerous than leaves in Vallambrosa, or than wattle blossoms in September. Nor is their musical and poetic quality to be despised. Many of them—the majority of them—are ephemeral and worthless; but taking them either in the aggregate, or in the unit, they represent a fairly high journalistic standard. Frequently can there be discovered among them a new image, a clever piece of workmanship, even an original idea. Their metrical quality is often admirable. In the Melbourne Argus there have been many good verses—verses so good that one regrets they should have been consigned to so perishable a receptacle as a penny print. For genuine melody, of something better than a topical sort, one would not go further than the lines written to a light-footed, golden-haired, pathetically-dead, dancing girl—lines that bring her back among the living:—
When the scene is lighted brightly, and we
watch the players nightly,
The peasant, and the prince, and the page.
The patriotic note has been struck often, sometimes clumsily, and sometimes with good effect. Mr Essex Evans gives it a local application in the rather formal verses beginning:—
Awake! Arise! The wings of Dawn
Are beating at the gates of Day.