sparkle, the animation of other days. Yet, whatever else it has lost,
it has retained its consciousness of former prosperity. It is as proud
as ever; in fact more proud than in the days when people were pouring
into it by thousands, and when fortunes were being made every five
minutes in its principal streets. Diminished prosperity has caused
it to hold its head higher. And at stated times, like some proud but
impecunious beauty, it insists on recalling itself to the mind of the
world. On Cup Days and _fête_ days it scores a triumph: it arrays
itself in the festal garment of the early ’nineties, and queens it to
the admiration of the stranger within its gates. On these occasions
Melbourne is incomparable. It has no need to be envious, because it is
the admired of all admirers. When the cheering is over, and the crowds
have departed, and the lights are being put out, Melbourne retires
moodily into itself, goes about its daily business with an abstracted
air, and consoles itself intermittently by talking of the long deferred
prosperity which it insists must come.
For if the place fails in this or in that respect, it never fails to
keep its expectations high. It has been doing this for the past dozen
years or more. It has long outgrown its happy-go-lucky, red-shirted,
soft-collared, mining, pioneering days. It has no wish to recall these
outward symbols of an earlier and a vanished generation. With the
memory of many losses and many disappointments, there is still the
determination to put the best face on everything. Though the crowds no
longer hum and vibrate round its chief thoroughfares, it retains its
streets and its houses, its spacious theatres and commodious public
buildings; its magnificent Houses of Parliament, its squares and
gardens, its network of railways and tram lines, its villa residences
at St Kilda and its mansions at Toorak. The outward shell of things
is still there. Every now and then there is a sign of movement, an
agitation as of returning life. The people are convinced that something
is going to happen. The period of depression, they say, cannot last for
ever. In imagination they can see the Golden Days ever returning.
Meantime, the business of keeping up appearances goes on. Melbourne has
become accustomed, through sheer force of insistence on its individual
merits, to regard itself as everything that a modern city ought to
be, and as most things that other cities are not. It prides itself on
a great deal--on its music, its art, its culture, its architecture,
its good looks, and its intelligence. In the matter of dress it
aspires to set the fashion for Australia. Men and women join in this
amiable rivalry. The girl of the Victorian capital is more severe
in demeanour, more classic in pose, and more punctilious in attire
than her Sydney sister. She takes herself more seriously. She has few
_negligé_ airs and graces; she does not cultivate the irresponsible
freedom of the gown of Nora Creina; she arrays herself for the Block
with a firm resolve to compel critical admiration. And in this she
generally succeeds. The men of Melbourne live in starched shirts and
expensive broadcloth. They cling tenaciously to that fading relic of
an earlier civilisation--the bell-topper hat. Social life in the city
would be impossible without one. The Universities keep up their quota
of students, whether the parents can afford to pay or not. The theatres
can attract audiences even for a performance of Wagner, or a revival of
Shakespeare. The city fathers set an example of dignity to the rest of
Australia. The politicians rarely call each other bad names, and never
indulge in free fights on the floor of Parliament.
Behind all this outward seeming there is, it need hardly be said, a
great amount of make-believe. Melbourne is only the temporary capital
of the Commonwealth, but it is the permanent centre of--to use an
ecclesiastically sounding word--attitudinarianism. Its mental life is
more the expression of a desire to be thought superior to others than
the outcome of any set of inborn predilections. Its intellectuality has
the motto _videri quam esse_. There is not one of its learned pundits
or its _litterateurs_ or its native born poets who has won much outside
reputation. Its scrupulous regard for dress is the screen for much
actual poverty. Its vaunted cosmopolitanism has no real existence.
Its social circle is, only too often, the playground of snobs. Its
professed public virtue deceives no one. In Sydney the spectacle of
vice undraped, and of Lais plying her profession in the public streets,
is more insistent and more familiar. But in Melbourne there is as much
for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union to grieve over, though there
may be less that meets the casual eye.
When the last word has been said on the subject--when it has been
admitted that Melbourne pretends a great deal and poses a great deal,
and hides a great deal--it is yet a fact that the city retains among
its people much of sterling worth, and many of the elements of
greatness. From the army of those who are not what they claim to be,
or not what they would have you think them to be, may be picked out a
leaven of those who are entitled to respect, and perhaps to something
more. Alert, quick-witted, well-read, well-mannered, tolerant, and
scrupulously fair--that is the type which may be encountered if the
search is keen enough. Hereafter, this type may set the standard. At
present, all that can be said of it is that it is there.
The fact must always stand to the credit of Melbourne that it is
capable of generous enthusiasms. When it lets itself go, it does
so without reserve. Carlyle has remarked that a man who can laugh
unrestrainedly, even if he only laughs once, is not wholly bad. A city
that can cheer unitedly and unreservedly, whether for a singer, an
orator, an actor, or a returned contingent, has at least some prospect
of emerging from the wilderness of shams in which it happens to be
located. Melbourne rises to greatness the moment it forgets itself.
X
THE NOVELIST AND HIS SELECTION
Some are born great, some achieve
greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them.--MALVOLIO in _Twelfth Night_.
He is a remarkable figure. It has remained for Australia to produce
him, and he is peculiar to Australia. He stands now in the full blaze
of the limelight. It has been centred on him for the past couple
of years or more, but the operator has not thought it necessary to
move the screen, and the audience, for its part, is quite satisfied.
Business is keeping up splendidly. There are some who say that a
prophet, and especially a literary prophet, must be without honour
in his own country. True as the statement is in the main, there are
occasional exceptions. One of these is furnished by the young man in
the shirt sleeves and the riding breeches, the young man with the
resolutely modest expression on his features, the young man who has
been photographed and paragraphed throughout the continent. He is a man
of much talent. English _Punch_ and Sydney _Bulletin_ both say so. Sir
John Madden declares that a copy of one of his books should be in the
hands of every boy and girl in the Commonwealth. That should be enough.
Let us, therefore, sing Viva! Let us sing it unitedly, for the winter
of our literary darkness is passing, nay, _has_ passed away.
Every one is aware by this time that Mr “Rudd” writes about the
back-blocks of Australia. He has discovered them. In fact, he has
almost invented them. What a region it is! To the casual observer it
may lack something in variety of scenery, in charm of association,
in human interest. But then the casual observer is not one who need
be taken seriously. Still less is he one whose opinion on literary
matters is of much value. In this interior region of the great Southern
continent there are shingle huts, and wire fences, and occasional
gum-trees, and the dry beds of creeks, and the thin crops struggling
above the surface of the ground, and, for the rest, a flat monotony
of desolation. For human interest there is an occasional sun-browned,
dirt-begrimed settler, an occasional ragged and vacant-faced youth, an
occasional dull-eyed, but stout-hearted woman. These people are part of
the life of the nation, and it is instructive to read about them. In
“Steele Rudd’s” pages they have their exits and their entrances, their
humorous, tragical, quaint, fantastic, sordid, and pathetic phases. The
novelist has done them every justice. So much justice has he done them,
that they have come, in a manner of speaking, to obscure the horizon.
Three books have been written about them, and the reading public is not
yet satisfied. It is still--or was a few months ago--clamouring for
more; it will take as much more as the author cares to give.
It is admitted that “Steele Rudd” has done a great thing; but it may
still be asked whether it is possible to praise a local writer sanely
and temperately, without going into ecstasies about him, without making
both himself and ourselves look ridiculous. Is there only one man in
Australia whose books are worth purchasing? Has the city life, the
business life, the artistic life, the ambitious life, the intense
social and political life of civilised Australia nothing to say for
itself? Must we reserve _all_ our superlatives, _all_ our limelight,
and _all_ our hard cash for this writer who keeps telling us, with
persistent and applauded iteration, about the shingle hut and the awful
wire fence, and the frightfully monotonous prospect of ragged selector
and sunburnt plain? What of our million and a half city residents?
What of the light and the love and the laughter of Collins Street and
Circular Quay? Is it not a fact that these have been crowded out,
unfairly crowded out, of the canvas? It is no wonder that outsiders
call us parochial. It is no wonder that they say we are lacking in
perspective. It is no wonder that, when we go to London, they judge us
by our odd pieces of _genre_-painting, and tell us that there is no
market for that sort of thing in the metropolis--that we had better
have stayed at home.
It is astonishing how few people, even of those who have lived in
Australia all their lives, have succeeded in discovering Australia. It
gives one almost a shock to reflect upon the amount of misconception
that has been spread throughout two hemispheres by Mr A. B. Paterson,
Mr Henry Lawson, Mr “Rudd,” and one or two others. Incredible as it
seems, it is yet a fact that there are several varieties of soil and
climate to be met with in this benighted part of the world. A man may
take himself out of sight of the seacoast, he may even settle on the
land, and yet have no experiences of drought, of duststorms, of dry
creek beds, or of thermometers at 120° in the shade. He may even find
that the weird melancholy of his place of abode has to be manufactured
out of his own imagination. In one part of the continent, and that a
part getting well up towards the Equator, there are the Darling Downs,
which are neither monotonously melancholy nor afflicted with recurrent
drought. And at the opposite end of the continent, in the south of
Western Australia, there are magnificent forests of karri and jarrah,
a soil capable of luxuriant growth, a hundred thousand square miles
of rain-fed land waiting for the plough. In the western district of
Victoria is to be found the Southern home of English grasses, of
European cereals, and of leafy trees. Another land of streams and of
fertile country stretches south from Port Jackson to Twofold Bay.
Within a couple of hours’ train ride of Sydney there is the western
mountainous district, than which there is no finer tourist ground in
this or in any other continent. When will some one write for us the
romance of the jarrah and the karri forest? When shall we hear, as a
change from the foreign sentiment of the Tyrolean Alps, the love story
of Katoomba and of the Blue Mountains? Is there ever going to be an
Australian Hardy to make lifelike fiction out of the Victorian western
district? Are these scenes, these places, these happy hunting-grounds
of the nature and humanity lover, to be, like the brave men who died
before Agamemnon, always unknown because of the want of an inspired
bard?
It is true that there is a dry and dusty and drably monotonous side
to Australia. This is the side that is most constantly written about.
Geographically it is of the greatest importance, because it takes up
so much space. So far as its population is concerned, it amounts to
little more than a bagatelle. The people who inhabit it are about
as numerous as the ghosts of lost explorers in the Arctic Circle.
Everything is against it as a residence for white men--its blare of
relentless and scorching summers, its bleak and rainless winters,
its dry creek-beds, its brick-like plains, its ungenerous soil, its
tremendous distances, its fearful monotony, its unspeakable isolation.
Yet it is an extraordinary circumstance that white men go there. They
go to live at Burke, and at the back of Burke. Other land is waiting
for them, other and more genial parts of the continent are clamouring
for settlement. Yet, for some unknown and inexplicable cause, because
of some hope that is greater than experience, because of some
pioneering instinct that is superior to reason, because of some courage
that is stronger than death, men are to be found ready to plunge into
this hard wilderness, believing they can tame it and break it in.
The books of the most successful Australian novelist are concerned
with the doings of these agricultural pioneers. He has exploited them
for all they are worth; a critic might be inclined to say for more
than they are worth, if he had not in mind the extraordinary result of
the recent flotations. There has been quite a sensation on the local
literary exchange. Mr “Rudd’s” debentures, after three successive
issues, are as firm as ever. He has monopolised the market. Who else
can command a price for this kind of paper--the paper that gives a
mortgage over Australian literary securities? The promoter of Dad and
Company, Limited, has had on his side the most experienced “bulls”
to be met with in Melbourne and Sydney. The “bears” have so far had
no voice in the matter. One particularly useful “bull” is he who
operates with a pencil. The illustrations of “Our Selection,” and of
“Our New Selection,” and of “Sandy’s Selection,” are very striking
and effective. If there is something that the terse language of the
novelist has failed to convey, or if the imagination of the reader
is not quite vivid enough to conjure up the whole picture, there is
the artist’s sketch or portrait to help out the illusion. Another
individual, whose value in sending up literary stock can hardly be
overestimated, is the journalistic fugleman. He has been unanimous
from end to end of Australia, and his share in the “Steele Rudd” boom
must not be allowed to go unrecognised.
It is a game that many play at, this game of novel-writing; and when
some one appears with dramatic suddenness, and carries off the one
prize worth having, it is necessary, it is inevitable, that we should
endeavour to find out how the feat has been accomplished. We know that
he has succeeded, but how, and by virtue of what gift, or mannerism,
has he succeeded? Is it by sheer virtue of literary merit, style,
finish, or that kind of attribute? These are what one would naturally
look for in any contest where pen and ink are the chief weapons. But
the search in this instance would upset preconceived ideas. “Steele
Rudd’s” literary garment is pure homespun. There is no embroidery, no
tapestry, no rich colouring of any sort. Even the favourite Australian
expletives are much watered down. One character says “damn you” to
another character, and says it often, but otherwise the vocabulary of
profanity is not drawn upon. The Australian novelist might have been
tempted to take a leaf out of the book of Rudyard Kipling, but he
has not done so. For this we can thank him. He gives no fresh terms,
puts no strain on the meaning of adjectives, and takes no liberties
with the English language. He deals very largely with monosyllables.
Often he leaves out introductory and connecting words, thus giving
his paragraphs a jerky, staccato effect. It is a style that Henry
James would marvel at, but one that the man in the street thoroughly
understands. The intelligibility constitutes its great merit. Yet, even
this latter quality, though it may be rare, is hardly rare enough to
carry the possessor to affluence and fame.
In what, then, does the supreme virtue of “Steele Rudd’s” novels
consist? Is it in the character-drawing? Here again the answer must
be in the negative. A thousand readers will rise to their feet as one
man, or as one woman, and point to the figure of Dad, the original
selector, as a supreme triumph of characterisation. But what has Dad
done to render himself original, or in any special way distinctive? As
he appears in these pages he is ragged, sun-browned, simple-minded,
good-hearted, optimistic, and persevering. It is a character one
likes, a temperament one admires. It is a figure that the Australian
public has taken to itself, and one that only a sacrilegious person
would speak of in disrespectful terms. We pass by Dad with all
deference, only venturing to remark that while we admire his courage
and perseverance, we find his optimism somewhat reminiscent of
Micawber, and his simple-mindedness faintly suggestive of my Uncle
Toby. And we say without any deference, that the subsidiary figures,
the Dan’s, and Joe’s, and Kate’s, and Sal’s of the “Selection” series,
exhibit very little character-drawing worthy of the name.
There must be some other reason for the author’s triumph. If the cause
is not to be found in a superlative literary quality, or in the subtle
analysis of character exhibited by Meredith and others, it may be
discoverable in the absolute fidelity to nature of certain scenes and
incidents. Have we unearthed in “Steele Rudd” the Australian painter of
real life--a man who can emulate in the Southern Hemisphere the example
set by Gorky in Russia, or Zola in France, or Gissing in England?
Scarcely this, either. From the pen pictures of these back-blocks
novels the element of realism is, for the most part, dexterously
eliminated. There may be--there are, pages out of real life. But if the
author, or any one else, told the whole truth, or half the truth about
the stunted growths and dull intelligences that result from too long
and too intimate an acquaintanceship with the Australian desert, the
book would not be considered pleasant reading. The people who buy it
now would put it on one side with a slight shudder, and a Chief Justice
would not refer to it as the kind of volume that should be in every
household, and studied by every boy and girl. Mr “Rudd’s” so-called
lifelike pictures are much idealised. The palace of Claude Melnotte by
the Lake of Como was not more preferable to the gardener’s hut, than is
the cheerful, breezy existence of Dad and Mother and their _entourage_
to the soulless, hopeless life-struggle of a certain kind of Australian
family. To be a genuine realist, you must not only give the hard
facts, but reflect the atmosphere of your characters and places. The
atmosphere of “Steele Rudd” is nothing if not buoyant; the writer is
always confident, and always smiling, even when he is telling about
ruined crops, and suffering adults, and hungry children. If he is not a
true romanticist, neither is he an absolute realist. He is as far from
being a Zola as he is from being a Beaconsfield.
Yet a triumph is a triumph; there must be some reason for it; it
cannot be built, or, at least, it cannot be sustained on air. If we
put aside the literary quality which is not stipulated for, and the
character-drawing which scarcely exists, and the realism which is
mainly imaginary, we are driven back on the humour--that impregnable
Torres Vedras behind which every devotee of the “Selection” novel
sooner or later entrenches himself. It must be the humour. The word is
one that has a very wide meaning. A man might more profitably endeavour
to number the stars than to bring the elusive quality of humour within
the four quarters of a satisfactory definition. For practical purposes
it may be observed that a humorous thing is that which strikes you
as humorous--though how, and when, and why it should strike you, are
matters that rest entirely with yourself. The most learned pundits
have laid it down as an axiom that there is great humour in the
spectacle of the fool in _Lear_ reminding his mad and weather-beaten
master of the sorry spectacle he is making of himself. “Steele Rudd,”
beyond all question, is a humorist, and not the less one because his
comic episodes take place in an atmosphere that is compounded much more
of tragedy than of mirth. The incidents themselves--say, for example,
those of the parson and the scone, of the racecourse and the worn-out
brumby, of Dan and the snake-bite, of Dad and the hoe--are scarcely
calculated to make a sympathetic reader laugh. But running through
the episodes as a whole, and colouring the work as a whole, there is
a certain suggestion of humour which it is difficult to locate or
analyse; a certain lightness of touch which can hardly be explained
in words; a certain buoyancy of treatment that makes reading easy; a
certain creative quality that is rarest of all, and hardest of all to
define.
The humour and the local colour would appear, therefore, to have
carried the day. An author has arisen in this country who can make
his readers smile, and who can convey to them an impression of certain
places and of certain people peculiar to Australia. It does not matter
so much why they smile, so long as the smile is visible. In regard to
the local colour, it is necessary to remark that this is not quite
the same thing as realism, though the two are often associated. Local
colour is the mask behind which realism may or may not exist. With the
aid of these two qualities, or gifts, or attributes, the young man who
writes under the pseudonym of “Steele Rudd” has travelled a long way.
Perhaps no one is more surprised at the distance he has compassed than
himself. There is evidence in his latest work that he is beginning to
collect himself; that he is recovering from the shock of his literary
advancement, and is beginning to attempt stronger and less fantastic
things. He may do better even than he has done yet. Every one will hope
that it may be so; for the writer with a gift like his is not common in
this or in any other country.
But there is another phase of his literary enterprise that must be
considered. It has to be borne in mind that the “Selection” novel does
not exhaust the methods of communication between Mr “Rudd” and his
public. The people who acclaimed the author in book form, are--or were
until a few months ago--getting him in magazine edition. The monthly
print which has sprung into existence on the strength of its editor’s
reputation is not only baptized with his pen name, but contains regular
instalments of his wit and fancy. Once again the familiar figures rise
before us. Once again we are invited to gaze on Dad with the whiskers,
and Joe with the patched trousers, and Mother with the arms akimbo and
the round face. Once again we breathe the atmosphere, once again we
hear the language. Once again we are reminded of the simple economic
truth that, so long as there is a demand for any commercial or literary
product, a supply will be forthcoming.