| PAGE | ||
| [I.] | VIRTUES AND VICES | 1 |
| [II.] | SOCIETY | 23 |
| [III.] | JOURNALISM | 45 |
| [IV.] | THE GAME OF POLITICS | 68 |
| [V.] | PSEUDO-LITERARY | 91 |
| [VI.] | ADAM LINDSAY GORDON | 113 |
| [VII.] | THEATRES AND AMUSEMENTS | 137 |
| [VIII.] | THE ETERNAL FEMININE | 160 |
| [IX.] | TWO CITIES | 181 |
| [X.] | THE NOVELIST AND HIS SELECTION | 204 |
| [XI.] | THREE WRITERS OF VERSE | 225 |
| [XII.] | FOUR PRIME MINISTERS | 252 |
| [XIII.] | THE IMPERIALIST | 277 |
| [XIV.] | THE LITTLE AUSTRALIAN | 296 |
| [INDEX] | 313 |
THE REAL AUSTRALIA
I
VIRTUES AND VICES
Over the ball of it,
Peering and prying,
How I see all of it,
Life there outlying!
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as national character. That is to say, there is no set of qualities peculiar to any one nation. In every known country extremes meet. They meet now, as they met in the days when history began. Greece has had its Zeno and its Epicurus, Rome its Octavian and its Vitellius, France its Barrère and its Chateaubriand, Germany its Heine and its Bismarck, England its Cromwell and its John Wilkes. Why multiply the list? Why assert of the contrasted characters that exist always side by side that one is typical of the people as a whole, and the other is not? Why imply that one class of individual ceases to exist at a particular parallel of latitude, and another begins there and then to take its rise?