Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-24
AWAITING A GENIUS.
Civilized Australia Has Developed
No Material Literature.
CHANCES THAT SLIPPED AWAY.
A Splendid Field Ripe for the Sickle Of
an Antipodean Writer.
POETRY OF THE SHBEPsHEDs
WRITTEN FOR THE D1srArcH..

"A lauu very nearly as laIsS 90 Wills Soun-
try, land peopled with folk co-heirs with
us in the grand heritage of English litera-
ture, vet land barren of literature; such is
Australia. 1t has its universities, and they
are noble foundations; its presses are turning
out miles of printed paper every
day; yet Australia has no writer's. The
people have not yet awakened to the
bounteous store of material which awaits
the magic touch of the man who knows how
to WELD the pen. Australia has been
written about, it has not yet learned to write
its own life; not until that awakening comes
will there be an Australian literature.
Men are too busy, the practical side of life
is too commonly uppermost for leisure to
scan the underlying truths of life, much
less for opportunity to set those truths forth.
There is always the wool clip, the grain
crop, the mine, thecourse of trade to engross
the attention; men grow to look upon wool,
wheat and gold as the sum, of life; the man
who turns his thoughts to other matters
than sheep and waving fields is looked upon
as in some sort deficient; the others sneer at
his work and let him starve. But twice has
their self-satisfed Philistinlsm been dis
turbed; twice only have they discovered too
late that genius has been slaughtered among
them; too late for regrets they exalt Horne
and Adam Lindsay Gordon to high places
in memory as the fathers of the Australian
literature.
FIRST RECOGNIZED ABROAD.
Horne's "Orion" and Gordon's bush bal
lads had become classics in England before
New South Wales and Victoria gave them
moments thought. Why, indeed, should
they? What these two wrote had not half
the interest OF new treatise on the sheep
dip. The Minister of Mines wrote far more
interesting matter. OF the two melancholy
fathers of Australian letters Horne is not
distinctively antipodean. "Orion" might
Just as we'll have been written in England
or America. With Adam Lindsay Gordon
it is different. He is Australian in heart
and soul. He writes but what he sees, the
life of the bush, the never ending plains OF
baked clay over which f1ickers the constant
mirage, the gaunt stems of the gum trees,
the umbrella spread of the mallees, the
scream of the cockatoo, the emerald flashing
of the parrot, the raucous shout of the laugh
ing jackass.
Who reads Gordon without being to the
manner born needs glossary to explain the
scenery in which the poems are set He
manity of the poet. The tale poor Gordon
had to tell was too truthfully told 10 win
him honor among his own. All recognized
the faithful picture; the art which made it
faithful they could not see, nor seeing ap-
preciate; they thought il OF no account, this
home made poetry, until too late they learned
that English judgment had given it fame.
When Gordon's su ccessor arises they will
probably do as they did before, give him a
boundary riders billet at a pound q week
and call him fool for scribbIing.
THE LITERARY VEHICLE.
Pens spoil as much paper in Australia as
elsewhere. There are daily papers and
weekly papers, monthlies and reviews. but
no literature native to the soil. The month
lies and the reviews are mainly political.
Grave battles are therein most soberly
fought, free trade marshals its forces against
protection, narrow gauge fights broad gauge,
all is dignity, also stupidity; there can be
no literature in this. The daily papers are
blankets in size, blankets in lightness; they
COPY point to point the English papers,
cemeteries of dullness.
The only possible literary vehicle is the
weekly. These are peculiar to the colonies.
They are the only reading Of the great mass
of people outside the towns. There are al
ways 80 pages in each number, sometimes
S4-that depends upon the new'. Such is
the best literary vehicle of the colonies. Yet
some write for these papers and their con-
tributions are published. One prominent
type adopts such signatures as "Bushman,"
'iSwagsman," ""Old Colonial, ,""Old Chum,"
and the like. They all tell long-wtnded
stories of early days in the colonies, they
have no literary ability, and invariably sue
ceed in spelling such stories as they have to
tell.
AN UNWORTHY LAUREATE.
Just one more entry sufices to balance
the books of Australian literary taste. Ten
years ago the colonies were smarting under
the just criticism that they starved their
men of genius. The criticism was known
to be just because Mother England had
passed it. Daughter Australia was resolved
to sin no more. A man of genius W as to be
found and fattened, that these literary COM
munities might never again be accused of
starvation treatment. Communities which
starve their poets cannot always find men of
genius ready at hand to be invited to feast.
Sush was the plight of Australia which
had starved poor Gordon. 1t had no genius
to be fed. In desperation it grasped young
man in the university at Sydney, a young
man who wrote pretty verses on cottony
themes. He was no genius, he was no poet,
he was nothing but young man who had
facility at rhyme and could make his verses
scan. Suddenly he found himself famous;
his verse was sought for by ladies with
albums, BY editors with Poets Corners to be
filled for aguiuea; publishers solicited his
illusions to be offered as a remunerative
tribute to the Australian muse. Bread and
meat were forced upon the puerIle versier;
he was ordered to grow fat and restore the
l. L.. Il. l. Al
founder of school; he still remains the idol
of his country, an uncrowned laureate, who
is blighting the literary future OF his land
even more fatally than the neglect of
Gordon.
FIELD FOR THE FUTURE.
When pampered mediocrity has grown
old and slipped from his throne, then will
come the chance of those who are to make
true Australian literature with the scent
upon it of the gum trees, with the new con-
ditions OF life cutting it clear from the En-
glish model with greater separation than
has ever been possible in America. The
young soil is already rich in material await
ing the man who shall have the wit to put
it to use. There Isl history, few years in
time but years crammed with events, his
tory which must read like romance. The
story of the discovery of New Holland
reads like the disordered vagaries of fiction.
1t is no more substantial than a voyage to
find the pot of gold at the further foot Of
the rainbow arch. for it is the story of the
search for King Solomon's mines and the
gold of Ophir.
While its discovery is the romance Of ad-
venture, its colonization is the romance of
crime Of every sort, and its redemption ia
the romance of wealth. These are the ma
IL II AkA ls~41- II. 81. 20
be written. Romance which is not history
may well be written on the lives OF the