Close to my feet that lagged for her upon the sands alone—
The better English journal can teach the better Australian journal nothing in respect of technique; but there is sometimes an artistic restraint about the one which the other might copy without suffering any loss. It is well, however, to recognise the day of small things, looking to the day when greater things will come to pass. From Dan to Beersheba everything is not barren; in fact there are springs and oases in cheerful profusion. And it must be remembered that if Australia, with all its effervescence of youth and ambition, has not yet found its intellectual footing, it is merely exemplifying a familiar stage in the life of man, which has a counterpart and analogy in the larger life of a nation.
VI
ADAM LINDSAY GORDON
Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone;
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.
Since the finding of his body on the Brighton beach one morning, thirty-five years ago, the fame of Gordon has been steadily growing. He is the acknowledged Australian poet; but what do his countrymen really know about him? Considering all things, the literature that has to do with him is meagre and inadequate. There is the appreciation of Francis Adams—good, on the whole, but fragmentary, and too exclusively insistent on the merits of one poem. There is the life of Gordon, told briefly, with a few strictly orthodox comments, in the book of Messrs Turner and Sutherland. There is also the work of Mr Desmond Byrne—correct, but formal, and consequently little read. Of late years the daily or weekly journalist has taken a fancy to revive interest in the poet, and to bring under notice some fresh phase or incident in his life. But there is yet a great deal that could be said. For the present the average Englishman knows nothing of Gordon, and even the well-read Englishman knows only the name attached to some galloping rhymes. The Australian is familiar with the name of Lindsay Gordon, and is not lacking in appreciation, but as often as not he reserves his praises for what is least admirable and least characteristic.
To think of Gordon is to think of a succession of pictures on an always darkening screen. The opening vistas are rose-coloured; but each successive glance at the moving canvas leaves on the mental retina an image more gloomy than the one before it. The result of the life itself was a great tragedy; the result of the work was a signal triumph. The contrast between these two—between this splendid artistic success and this dire personal failure—have helped to create for Gordon a sympathy and affection out of proportion to the amount, though scarcely out of keeping with the quality of his writing. He resembles somewhat the fleeting figure in Shelley’s Adonais:—