It should come as no surprise to those who watch the ocean, and see its lines roll in with the form of waves, that many an Australian poet has long been attracted to, inspired by, and at home amongst the Australian coastal landscape. This way of seeing 'vision' everywhere would also be applicable to green to blue hills to the western horizon, in Pittwater's case, aligned with the constantly changing colours of the estuary when not on the coast.
Those with enough intellect to string a few lines together that evoke and take us to places tangibly intangible are also those who frequently like to be within reach of a metropolitan area where people abound, where books in libraries are accessible, where paper and ink may be procured with which to write those bursts of feelings and thoughts down. Manly was within a steamer trip of Sydney 'town' before the advent of decent roads, and Pittwater a steamer, coach or sailing trip away.
Research has made it apparent Manly and Pittwater, and the long stretches of coastal bliss in between, have long been a haven and inspiration for these wordsmiths of song. It is in the petroglyphs that were made by the original custodians and the songs, of annual returnings, these are Markers for.
It is in the earliest records of those sent to or escaping to this beautiful land through the songs they brought with them and in the way they sought to communicate with those still in that northern 'green and pleasant land' what they were seeing, and filled to the pores and beyond with, here. For those living here these poets were popular when alive, as opposed to when dead, and through the wider range of newspapers and weeklies and monthlies available then than what is available as a 'newspaper' today, their stories and poems could be read and shared by a resident population that may not have access to books and libraries in rural areas outside the metropolis, or read aloud for those who had not had access to an education. For those to whom articles, poems and songs were read aloud is the inference of the first meaning of 'Bard'.
The pre-Christian Celtic peoples recorded no written histories; however, Celtic peoples did maintain an intricate oral history committed to memory and transmitted by bards and filid. Bards facilitated the memorisation of such materials by the use of metre, rhyme and other formulaic poetic devices. In medieval Gaelic and British culture, a bard was a professional story teller, verse-maker and music composer, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or noble), to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.
These writer, poets and 'bards' were, in fact, establishing an Australian voice, perhaps with an Irish brogue, in the case of Mr. Daley, or with French twinges, in the case of Mr. Argles, or any of several other accents, but they were speaking of a place they clearly revelled in and did not leave, despite opportunity to.
Victor James William Patrick Daley (August 5 1858 (?), christened September 5th (he later writes in a birthday book of Fred Bloomfields that his birthdate is September 5th; see in timeline below) – 29 December 1905) was an Australian poet. Born at the Navan, County Armagh, Ireland, and educated at the Christian Brothers at Devonport in England, he arrived in Australia in 1878, and became a freelance journalist and writer in both Melbourne and Sydney. Whilst in Melbourne, he met and became a friend of Marcus Clarke; later, in Sydney, he became acquainted with Henry Kendall. He is notable for becoming the first author in Australia who tried to earn a living from writing alone. In Sydney in 1898, the same year he published Dawn and Dusk, he was among the founders of the bohemian Dawn and Dusk Club, which had many notable members such as writer Henry Lawson. This was a further development of articles titled 'The Bohemians' Victor began penning and having published in 1882.
He died of tuberculosis in 1905, as had his good friend Emile Theodore Argles in 1886 and Kendall in 1882.
Victor used the pseudonym 'Creeve Roe' (Irish =Red Branch - the area next to the Navan where Cu Chulainn trained as a Red Branch Knight), as well as a few other pseudonyms and his own name in various versions when he did place his name next to his written works.
He was among those called 'Manly Bards' by Henry Lawson in a tribute poem published in 1906, months after his passing away.
Regarding these early generations of what is acknowledged as Australia's early poets there are at least three incidences of a poet's commune of sorts occurring within Manly. Their being enticed to venture into the Pittwater area runs from Manly occurs too. In examining those of 135 (1882) and 115 years ago (1902 to 1905), those that met Kendall, Farrell and Deniehy and inherited and carried forward the torch, are named as that overlap generation of Australian wordsmiths in:
Melville was one of the older school of Bulletin writers. He sang the praises of, Manly in season and out of season. It was probably through his personal influence that Victor Daley and Henry Lawson came to live in 'The Village'. I think Roderick Quinn lived there for a little while also. Quinn, if not an actual resident, was a frequent visitor to the others. I remember now we awe-struck youngsters used to gaze at the four poets strolling down the street arm in arm— and taking its width in their stride. One of Daley's, sons was enrolled as a pupil at the Manly Public School. ....
SURFING AND CELEBRITIES. (1933, February 18). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32585829
This refers to poets living beside the seaside in the years 1902 to 1904. Roderick Quinn, whose brother Patrick lived in Manly, certainly wrote many articles and poems inspired by the area, as seen in some of those collected for Roderic Quinns Poems And Prose For Manly, Beacon Hill, Dee Why And Narrabeen. His brother also wrote about the area and at least one sojourn on the Pittwater estuary itself as 'Viator' in 'A Run to Pittwater'.
There are at least two outstanding incidents prior to this which established Manly, a gateway north to greener Pittwater, as a place frequented by these now legendary poets and wordsmiths. There are links that fan out to Middle Harbour, and there mingled with a rising group of Artists, through Mosman and Mosman Bay, Little Sirius Cove, where Curlew Camp was located, and Balmoral, that extended and changed, or even began in the estimation of some, an Australian School of Art.
The first of these 'visitations' occurs in mid 1882:
Early ' Bulletin ' Memoirs.
No XI.
The Pilgrim ! More.— This strange genius lived an extraordinary life, and was really Puck incarnate. His scheme in Maitland Gaol, devised to make the place a pandemonium of suspicion, in which he succeeded in involving gaoler and warders and female prisoners and warders' wives in a series of scandals, was a fair example of his delight for mischief. When on the early Bulletin the Pilgrim was let loose to satirise the ignorant 'In Memoriam' verses in the daily press columns, he simply revelled with delight in poetic shafts of ridicule. It was his four-line mimicry of a South Sydney man who had lost his aunt that brought that individual down to the office with a stick in his hand and fire in his eye for satisfaction. There was no end to the turmoil.
Then the Pilgrim turned his hand at pleasant verse on marriages notified in the daily papers— and we stood on the brink of numerous dangers; and it was beginning to be very risky for any body with funny names to get married at all, when Grey decided to desist, as the salary was not high enough to cover war risks. Various bridegrooms interviewed him, and at least three times he demanded a new set of teeth from the office— as compensation for losses at the 'front.'
He was the master theatrical critic at the time. Very often, out of sheer devilment, he'd write up a chorus girl's charms, and send a prima donna right off her head. At times he'd employ all his wits to invest a fourth-rate part with the importance rightly attachable to the principal —and then trouble before and behind the curtain would begin. In some of the criticisms, for instance, he'd never describe Holloway, an early barnstormer, as anything else but 'Bill,' and Verdi, the pompous baritone, was only 'Bill Green' when he was writing opera. He developed squabbles on every stage and around them all, and though long since gone to his rest, he doubtless still gives a turn to laugh again over his scarifying or satirical thrusts at Williamson, Garner and Musgrove, Fanny Liddiard, Maggie Moore, Nellie Stewart— and not forgetting the amateur Hamlet, gasfitter Defries, and the amateur Othello, Isaac Reginald Isaacs, of Woollahra, who lent money on more liberal terms than ever known before — but who never would play Shylock on the stage, whatever he might do off it.
In the office, the Pilgrim was always ahead of his salary, and Traill, who joined Archibald and myself in the proprietary after the Clontarf libel case, felt himself called on to put the break on Grey. Sparks resulted. One day Traill refused Grey an advance— not until he had written something good. The Pilgrim hurried away, and returned with a tip-top literary essay entitled 'The Ogre— A Study.' Traill said it was good— very good indeed, and advanced two guineas. When it was published, Traill received a letter from Grey with the article pinned to it — and the raff words ' Behold your own photo!' And such it was.
Though of Jewish descent, the Pilgrim somehow relished the joke of circumventing any Hebrew who came in his way. A Pitt-street jeweller named Bronway, pushing trade one day, put a watch in the Pilgrim's pocket with a gold chain attached, and, standing back to admire, told him he looked 'sphlen- did ' — in fact, he ' would cause a shen-shation in de sthreet ven you gonoudt,' which the Pilgrim did, by walking away with the watch on the time payment r system, the terms of which are not yet up. It cost old Bronway about £100 in time to see the Pilgrim — 'and at last he concluded that ' that Pilgrim wash no tarn goot.'
However, they were destined to meet again. Bronway had a furnished cottage at Manly, which he advertised, and the Pilgrim, Daley (I think), and Caddy decided that they all wanted fresh air — and by the sea side. Caddy, as Bishop Barker's relative, hired the cottage, and never haggled a bit about the rent. Bronway could have it whenever he liked. The Bohemians immediately went into possession, but though the tide flowed in and flowed out for days and weeks at Manly, it was all slack tide as far as the rent was concerned.
The trio did fine. Broad-minded, they gave everybody 'a turn' at the village, and sent us some beautiful copy. They opened accounts with the Manly shopkeepers to pay on the second Wednesday in the month, but forgot to specify the month. Bronway, tired of waiting for the Bishop's relative to come to town, decided to run down to Manly to interview him. He reached his cottage through a broken sea of dead marines and sardine, salmon, and herring tins, which, having a large nose for general purposes, alarmed him much. He knocked gently, but with authority. He knocked once, he knocked twice, he knocked thrice. The enemy within got word from Caddy, who was the range-finder for such occasions, that Bronway was the obtruder. A council of war immediately held decided that the Pilgrim should act as negotiator, the Demon agreeing — believing that on Bronway seeing him the Hebrew might go right off from shock. Opening the door, the Pilgrim extended a warm welcome to the jeweller. ' Ah .' mein Gott. fife It's you who's got mein cottadge. Out of de plais, out of de plais ! Och, och,' and Bronway turned round to look at the empty picnic tins and dead marines lying thickly slain everywhere. The Pilgrim, however (with more devil), assumed the legal attitude, and finally it was a fortnight before the Bohemians shifted camp. Before leaving, however, they ' honourably ' settled all accounts. They notified the Manly business people to call round for their accounts on ' next Monday ' afternoon, by which time the new tenants were in Bronway's cottage, while with the new tenants they left word to tell the shopkeepers to send on their accounts to Mr. Grey, care of Mr. Bronway, jeweller, Pitt-street, Sydney.
Parish of Manly 1885 (?) to 1894 (?)
The trio returned to the city from the sea coast in good health and much refreshed. The week after their return, while people were writing from Manly for their money or calling personally on Bronway, the Pilgrim wrote a note ostensibly from the jeweller, asking Traill to call on him to arrange a page advertisement in the Bulletin. 'Don't you talk to me about de Bulletin,' said he on learning who Traill was, ' You're all tam skoundhrels down dair. I shop de lot of yer before I done. You all in it. Get out of my shop. Get out of my shop.'
No explanations would suffice, and Traill arrived back at the office with the news that 'the Pilgrim was no doubt a scoundrel.' 'He's been up to more games.' However, as an Imp was still wanted at the office (now more than ever), Gray was kept on. Not only on the paper, but always and in every act the Pilgrim played the Imp with perfection.
When the Bennett's began to receive their big returns from the Evening News and Town and Country Journal, they took to carriages They loathed the Pilgrim the more they rose, but he remained unchanged ; he would still be their friend. Seeing either Alfred or Frank Bennett driving with ladies in a fine carriage, the Pilgrim, who it should be remembered, was always elegantly dressed — would obsequiously salute the party and exclaim, 'How are you, Alf?' or 'Frank?' and before the Bennett's could recognise their mistake they would return the salute, and the ladies would bow. On would go the Pilgrim chuckling with delight. If the carriages drove up to a fashionable shop or the races, the Pilgrim would stroll up, lean against the vehicle, and most cordially chat with the ladies. When Alfred or Frank would appear, with flaming anger in their eyes, the Pilgrim would make an obsequious bow and exclaim, ' Well, old boy, must be off— just chatting with the ladies — tol-lol.'
Meantime he was writing the drollest of droll imitations of Alfred or Frank's literary efforts in describing an account of a concert. It may well be imagined how readily he wrote the biting libel on Tom Robertson, solicitor (Fisher, M'Carthy, and Robertson) at the dictation of Henniker Heaton, the Bennetts' brother-in-law ; and how glad he was next day to inform Robertson that he was very sorry he had to write such a gross libel on him in the Bulletin.
‘But you know how it is. Henniker Heaton is one of the proprietors, and I had to write what he gave me. ' Of course the Imp had put the match to the gunpowder. Robertson detested Heaton. The libel action for £10,000 cost Henniker his share in the paper, as fully detailed in Memoir No. III., while the loss of £2000 of Bulletin money knocked all desire for journalism out of John Woods, bus proprietor and general carrier, who had made such a noble effort to ascend the ladder of fame by becoming a partner in the new idea. Around all this curious mischievous work there is no doubt the Pilgrim did a power of good with his pungent pen, as he satarised every form of imposture and humbug which existed at the time in Sydney— and there was close on a century of it. Daylight was let in on everything, and the early Bulletin was justly credited with huge public services, notwithstanding its many mistakes.
I was glad I retained the Pilgrim's friendship to the last. On an urgent message one day I called on him. He was living in a little house in an obscure street off William-street. He was in the last few hours of his life. He had sent for me, he said, as he was nearing his end. At this time I had left the Bulletin. I found him bright, but shrunken, and he asked me to do what I could for his wife and youngster. He retained a great dislike to Traill to the last — perhaps unjustly, perhaps not. However, asking for his own portrait, he handed it to me — ' All I have to give,' he said. Asking for it again he made a final effort with his pen and scratched on the back of the picture the last words he ever wrote —
' Poor little Poet, so weak, so frail,
Run to death by the ogre, Traill.'
As I rose to leave, a tear came to his eye, and turning his head in pain aside he sank away to die. John Haynes. Early "Bulletin" Memoirs. (1905, June 24).The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney, NSW : 1900 - 1919), p. 16. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article114727978
'Caddy' was Charles Wesley Caddy, referred to as 'The Philosopher' in Daley's series on 'The Bohemians', and the gentleman he tramped to Queanbeyan with in 1881 - some of which runs below - while Grey, as run previously, was Emile Theodore Argles, who was referred to as the 'Dramatic Critic' during the 1882 run of this series of 'The Bohemians' articles by Victor Daley.
This insight illuminates Daley's own reference in his 'Some People' article of 1902 except that Mr. Daley states 'Grey was a very clean and fastidious man' and that he was the one who had taken a cottage:
This reminds me that upon one occasion, many years ago, I dropped into a little newspaper office in Hunter-street. The newspaper was called 'Society.' Its editor was Harold Grey. It lived thirteen weeks. When I went in Grey was cursing the machinist because the machine wouldn't work. The machinist was a big upstanding fellow who would have killed any outsider who said a word against Grey. But there was a limit even to his forbearance. ' How can I work the machine. without oil?' he growled. . '' What's become of the oil?''-said Grey. '' Well,'' said the machinist, ''one of your literary staff came in a while ago and demanded a drink. I hadn't a drink to give him. He said it didn't matter; and drank the machine oil!''
In those days I had a cottage at Manly en garcon. It was furnished completely — apparently for honeymoon couples. There was a double breakfast set of innumerable pieces, and a dinner-set of seventy-two pieces. Grey was staying with me at the time, and we never used the same bit of crockery twice. Grey was a very clean and fastidious man. When some actresses came down to see us once upon a time, we were drinking tea out of butter-boats, and all the other dishes were stacked up ready for washing.
They called us several hard names, and then — the feminine instinct of order getting the better of them— set to and washed the whole stack of dishes.
I was sleeping with a rug around me on the beach about fifty yards away. They roused me up and made me chop wood, for the fire, and they made Grey come out of the honeymoon bedroom and cook ham and eggs and make two omelettes. He was a fine cook— a cordon bleu in his way.
Four girls there were, and they insisted that I should sit at the head of the table. They had previously plundered the cupboard, and placed all its little potted luxuries upon the board. It was the first decently set-out meal I had faced since I took the cottage. How their tongues wagged ! How their teeth, flashed ! White as the foam on the beach were their teeth. And how they laughed ! And how we laughed ! And how, all of us laughed together ! Never was a merrier party in the world.
Then when the banquet was over, we put up two bottles — we could spare them, they were empty — on two posts. One was labelled with the name of their employer; the other was labelled with the name of ours. We threw stones at them. Grey and I demolished our employer in five shots; but it took the girls half-an-hour to make flinders of Williamson. And where are now those laughing, careless girls? One is a care- worn married woman with seven children. The others—
Where is Lesbia?
Where is Lais?
Where Brunhilde, with brow austere?
Where are Cleopatra, Thais, Bertha,' Broadfoot, Guinevere?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man, Only heard on mead and mere,
And Lady Flora, the lovely Roman—
But where are the snows of yester-year?
They are gone over the horizon. Possibly they are dead. Grey, with all his light wit and wicked sarcasm, has lain 16 years asleep under green grass in the Waverley Cemetery.
Of course, I shall see him again, and he will be the leader of a company of friends of mine in Elysium, and he will say ‘Well, you have been a time ! - , What kept you?' ...SOME PEOPLE. (1902, December 20).The Worker (Wagga, NSW : 1892 - 1913), p. 5 (THE WORKER'S Xmas Budget). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145884640
This 1902 article by Mr. Daley refers to the first Manly sojourn of 1882, and was written when he was living at Manly again. 1882 was also when Victor visited our area, as this small insight, by Julian Stuart (1866 to 1929) an Australian journalist, trade unionist, poet and politician who was born in Raymond Terrace, New South Wales and grew up on the Clarence River.
A HAWKESBURY HOLIDAY.
By JULIAN STUART.
ONE Christmas Eve, in the early eighties, as the clock in the G. P.O. struck six, I hurried to lock up the office books; I wanted to catch the Newcastle night boat for my holidays on the Hunter.
I'd have: done it too, but the managing director spent some overtime on one volume, a brass-bound journal with a patent lock, and by the time he was done I had no chance. After he had locked it and given it to me to be put in the fireproof safe he put on his 'tail' coat and 'billy' hat, shook hands, wished me a merry Christmas and caught the bus for Petersham. I did not say what I wished him for making me miss my trip though. He had worked overtime because Mudgee Taylor, in discussing some; George-street resumptions (which were proposed in order to widen the approaches to the Post. Office) had said: ''The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof ? No fear, the earth belongs to Mr. Paling, and he wants £1500 a foot for it.'
The music warehouse in which I worked was two doors from the G.P.O., and Mr. Paling, the founder and head of the firm, a genial foreigner, with a genius for making money, was on a trip to Europe when the question of resumption cropped up, and we had to handle it in his absence. (I was the junior clerk.) I forget how much he made out of it, and remember the incident only because it knocked on the head my holiday on the Hunter.
Building operations were proceeding at the Post Office, and when coming to work one morning I narrowly escaped a man who fell from the scaffolding round the tower. From first to last fourteen men were killed the same way.
Early Boxing Day I went, down to the Wharf to hunt up Locky Macdonald, a marine engineer (donkeyman) from the North Coast. His boat had arrived overnight and I was hoping it might be his day ashore, so we could go somewhere together. I found him busy and wrathful. After working all night to get the cargo (maize, sugar, hides and tallow) out of the holds, and pigs, poultry and other livestock from the foredeck, they had to start at daylight to clean up the ship and swab her down, dress her in flags from stem to stem, and make her nice and pretty for an excursion to Broken Bay. I was sorry Locky had to sacrifice his shore leave, but it suited me. I had heard much of the beauties of the Hawkesbury and grabbed the chance of seeing Broken Bay.
My hamper for the trip was reminiscent of schooldays — lots of pastry and lemonade. During the day I was sorry I had not brought something more substantial. Victor Daley was on board and, happening to overhear him remark that the 'flagon had run dry,' I diffidently asked him to share our repast, and I was a proud youth when he did. There was a rustic little tavern on the wooded shores of the Bay where we spent an unforgettable day, nearly, missing the boat when it was time to start back for Sydney at sundown. Next to Kendall, I like Daley best of Australian poets. A HAWKESBURY HOLIDAY. (1928, February 15). The Australian Worker (Sydney, NSW : 1913 - 1950), p. 13. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145989625
This later 'Hawkesbury' item echoes that of the ghost and convict stories told Daley by a resident and related during his 1882 visit coming down the Hawkesbury aboard The Florrie. This was published under his pen-name of Creeve Roe and relates one of many ghost stories, or a conglomerate of epitomes. Mr. Daley was a storyteller and journalist as much as a favourite Bard:
A NIGHT AT NARORA.
By CREEVE ROE.
Alison reined in his horse at the top of the zig-zag descent, and gazed down with the delight of an artist upon the loveliest valley to be found in all the picturesque Hawkesbury country. It was shut in almost completely by gum clad hills, the girdling walls whereof were broken in two places only — where the Narora entered the valley, and where, after describing a shining silver S, it flowed forth to join the distant Hawkesbury. This was not the first time Alison had looked upon the scene. He had paid one or two-previous visits to Narora, but had not stayed more than a few hours on such occasion. Now, however, he intended to stay long enough to paint a picture of the valley which he had determined should be his master-piece, and should make his brother artists sage green with envy. . .
Hw dismounted and led his horse slowly down the breakneck zig-zag cut in the almost precipitous face of the hill The sagacious animal knew its way better- than did its leader, and accomplished the descent chiefly on its haunches, pulling itself up just in time to escape plunging through the roof of a weatherboard cottage which was built against a small cliff at the bottom of the zig-zag " In this cottage dwelt the Alexander Selkirk of the Valley, a fisherman by the name of Crosby, with his wife and two daughters, handsome Hawkesbury girls with complexions of mingled amber brown and apple red and arms which could have served as models for a pair intended to take the place of those lost by the Venus of Milo, but which, nevertheless, could send a boat through the water in a style which would have been admired by a professional sculler. The presence of these damsels in the valley did not, it may be guessed, detract from its picturesqueness in the eyes of the artist. He had previously arranged with the fisherman to rent a two roomed cottage, which stood, in the midst of a small garden, containing peach, orange and apricot trees and vines bearing huge clusters of fat black Isabella grapes, on the further side of the river, about half a mile from Crosby's cottage, and hidden from it by a projecting spur of the hill opposite. His meals he proposed to take with the fisherman's family. The Narora Naiads gave him a frank welcome, not untinged with a slight touch of coquetry. Their sire, the river god, was repairing his boats in the little dock he had made about 100 yards distant from the house. Alison strolled down towards him and sat on the bank smoking and talking for an hour or so as he watched him at work. When the pair returned to the house the shadows wore beginning to slant eastward, but the valley was still bathed In sunlight.
That excellent fish, the mullet— the dainty silver sand mullet, not the squalid sea-vengering mud mullet, which is an obscene fish, was the chief dish upon the table when they eat down to dinner, or tea, as the evening meal is called by dwellers on the Hawkesbury and its tributaries. Tea over and table cleared, the fisherman and the artist lit their pipes and commenced to yarn Crosby had been a sailor in his younger days, and had many curious stories to toll-of his experiences on the high seas. The talk gradually drifted around to the subject of the supernatural Crosby said that he was no believer in ghosts, but a strange thing had happened one night when he was towing. down the river on his way to a distant fishing ground. "It was nearly full moon," ho said, " and everything was as clear as if it was daylight — except in places | where the creek took a bend, and there it was so black dark, you had to feel your, way along. I This didn't trouble me, as I knew the course of I the creek by heart, and could have got along j blindfold almost as well as with my eyes open. While I was passing through one of those dark places, I heard the sound of oars ahead of me. I I couldn’t make it out. There wasn't, and isn't now, a soul living on the creek but myself. Dick Anderson is my nearest neighbor, and he, as I you know, lives over 10 miles away, close to where the Narora joins the Hawkesbury I didn't I bother puzzling over the matter, however, but put a spirt on, thinking to overtake the party, whoever it was, that was in the boat, and have company down the creek. As I swept around the bend into the moonlight I saw him sliding steadily along, about six boat lengths in front of me. Now I'm reckoned even at the present time one of the best oarsmen in the district, and in those days I was a lot better man In a boat than I am now I gut annoyed at not being able to easily overhaul the cove ahead, so I lay back to my oars and sent the Boat ripping through the water till I could hear it hissing under her bow. After tearing along In this way for about ton minutes I glanced over my shoulder, and, strike me silly, if the cove wasn't still the same distance away, and pulling, so it seemed to me, as easy as if he'd only come out on the creek to rest himself ! I was real mad by this time and made up my mind that I'd run him down if I had to burst a blood vessel in doing it. Out of the moonlight, around the dark bends and into the moonlight again I followed him, the sweat streaming down my face and my breath coming in gasps. At hot we shot into the two mile reach, which was shining under the moon like the quicksilvered back of a looking glass. And then I stopped and turned around to take a fair look at the over who had made such a show of mo on my own bit of water. His back was turned to the moon, so I couldn't make out his features, but the light shone on his hands and they were white as chalk. I sung out to him something about its being a fine night, and asked him if he would like to go fishing, but he never answered. And, in a second, while my eyes were fastened on him and his boat, both disappeared. They couldn't have gone under, because there wasn't a ripple left on the water where they had been, And there was no other way in which things of flesh and blood, and honest substantial wood could disappear so suddenly. I've never seen the same sight since, and I never want to see it again." M So you conclude it was a ghost in a ghostly boat, like the lady with the firefly lamp, who rows o'er the Lake of the Dismal Swamp all night in her birch canoe?" said Alison, with a smile. "I've told you I don't believe In ghosts," replied the fisherman somewhat testily. But," he added thoughtfully, after puffing silently at his pipe for a few moments, "there's some queer stories told about uncanny sights that have been seen in this very valley. You know the garden around the cottage you are going to live in?" ' Alison nodded. "Well there is a big log at the bottom of it, amongst a lot of reeds just by the bank of the creek. Many years ago, long: before I came here, a murder was committed there. Two sawyers were working on the place at the time. Ono of them was' married and lived with his wife in the cottage you are going to occupy. The other camped in a tent close by. The woman was young and good looking, and her husband was jealous of her. They say he had reason. Anyhow, he made his mate drunk one night and then took him down to the log at the end of the garden, dropped his head off and throw the body into the creek. He was hanged for the murder afterwards on that same old gallows which you may still see standing on the flat, about two miles up the creek. That was away back In the convict days, but the story goes that every night since then, at a certain hour, the ghost of the murderer may be seen beside the log chopping off the head of the other ghost, I never saw the performance myself, but I know several persons who claim to have seen it," ... The lamp had been burning for some time when Alison rose to take his leave for the night, When the door was opened he saw that the valley was filled with darkness. He was not superstitious, but he heartily wished that the fisherman had kept his yarns for another occasion, Mrs. Crosby, who probably guessed his thoughts, pressed him to stay where he was for the night, remarking that there was a bed in a spare room to which he was welcome. He was about to thankfully accept her offer when he caught the eyes of the two girls fixed upon him in what he took to be a glance of malicious amassment. This was too much. Whatever might happen, he wouldn't let them see that he was afraid So he-laughed, with some difficulty, and said that he might as well make the acquaintance of his ghostly neighbors at once if it had to be done. With this valiant remark on his lips he plunged into the darkness.
"Take care of yourself," Crosby cried out after him.
The observation was a commonplace one, yet, somehow, it fell with ominous significance on his ear. But Alison possessed both moral and physical courage, and by a strong effort of will power kept his thoughts from-dwelling on the ghostly subjects suggested by the stories of the fisherman. Leaving the skirts of the projecting spur previously mentioned, he struck into the meadow, which looked like a lake of darkness. Here he began … his voice all the scraps of song he could remember, suddenly, in the midst of high note, he felt something rise up under him which… lain from the ground and threw him forward on his face. He lay the dark with fright when he heard the sound of heavy breathing close beside him. Then he sprang with a great gasp of relief, which ended in a hearty laugh as it was borne in on him that his bravura singing had disturbed the repose of a cow that must have been in the act of rising when he cannoned against her. This little incident cheered him greatly, and dissipated all his nervousness. Who could harbor ghostly thoughts after colliding with a cow? He went on his way with a light heart but careful steps, because although he had been at the cottage over the river on several occasions by daylight he had never before made the journey at night. And this night was so dark that he might easily walk into the river without seeing it. As luck would have it, however, he tumbled against the very swamp oak to which the boat used for crossing the creek was moored. He unloosed the painter, and bringing the boat close up to the bank clambered in cautiously and headed her in the direction, as -nearly as he could guess it, of the little pier on the ' other side. There was on the face of the water a faint wan glimmer, ghastly as the gleam of dead men's eyes. Alison pulled a few steady strokes which should have taken him across, but did not. He began to think ho was drifting down stream when with a swisk-swask the boat ran into a bed of reeds. At this moment the upper rim of the rising moon appeared above the crest of the opposite hill, and he saw with a shudder that he was within an oar's length of the haunted log. But there was nothing un-canny about it. The ghostly sawyers— supposing that the legend was something more than a mere riverside myth— had evidently either concluded their performance or not commenced it He backed his boat out of the reeds and brought her up to the pier, which was now clearly visible in the moonlight. After making her fast, he walked up to the cottage with the door key in his hand. And then he hesitated, and In a moment cold fear took possession of him, and froze the blood around his heart. Listening intently he thought he heard something stirring inside the cottage. The strain upon his nerves was too intense to be borne. With a twist of his wrist he opened the door, and, striking a match, lit the candle which had been left for him upon the table in the outer room. Then he threw open the bedroom door, which was situated at the further end of the wooden partition which divided the two rooms. There was, of course, nothing unearthly in the cottage. Alison got into bed quickly and blew the candle out. He was beginning to drift gently down the tide of sleep when he heard a sound which caused him to sit bolt upright in bed and listen with his soul in his ear. It was as it a blind man was groping for. the latch of the outer door. And then he thought he heard the door swing slowly Inward on Its hinges, and the same fearsome groping Continued along the partition accompanied by a pushing sound as of feet that had been treading in ooze. The Bounds ceased outside the bedroom door, which opened outwards into the outer room, and Alison (who by this time was, 'with his eyes fastened on the door, crouching in the attitude of a wild beast about to spring) conjured up a picture of the headless, water sodden corpse of the murdered sawyer standing on the bank he flung himself in a heap against the door, and dashing it violently back, rolled across the floor of the outer room. When he discovered in a few moments that he was the victim of his own imagination, he picked himself up with a grim laugh, and after drawing on his trousers and boots, marched deliberately down through the garden till ho came td the haunted log. It was broad moonlight by this time, and no ghosts were to be neon. Alison had worked himself into a rage over the humiliating thought that he had been actually frightened, and shouted out a challenge to all the ghosts in the neighborhood to come forth and show themselves if they had any courage at all. A weird echo that came across the river from the opposite hill was all he heard in reply He returned to the cottage and went to bed again. But not to sleep. Some unaccountable fascination kept his eyes fixed on the bedroom window, upon which the moon was shining. All at once a shadow crossed the light and he saw a white face pressed against the panes. Not being frightened on this occasion, he attributed the apparition to the effects of indigestion Nevertheless, as sleep was now out of the question, he arose and dressed himself, “I must see a doctor before thing goes too far," he said to himself as be closed the door of the cottage behind him. And almost while the words were on his lips he saw crouching upon the little pier, the form of a female. How came she there and what did she want ? He asked her, not without misgiving if she wanted to get in the boat Evidently she wanted to cross the river. Then he recalled… Alison stepped Into the boat and the forlorn female followed him and sat in the stern seat. He was about to row across when she shook her head and pointed … "Anything to please a lady," he smiled. He was beginning to construct a ram 1 out of the adventure. But all his attempts to draw his strange passenger into conversation were fruitless. She drew her black …closely around her and kept her eyes fixed on a point ahead. This … the artist, who was not used to being treated this way by members of the sex. He comforted himself with the thought that she was dumb, and rowed on in silence. " When they arrived abreast of a bank overgrown with myrtle and …there she waved him to stop rowing. He did so, and the boat's nose up to the bank Th» I 8 ' got out, and without a word or a backward glance, walked across the flat in one direction till he lost sight of her. His curiosity was now thoroughly aroused, and turning the boat up stream once more; he rowed around the bend of the creek which skirted the upper portion of the flat. And there he saw her again. Sitting under the black skeleton of the old convict gallows, which stood . . ghastly In the moonlight. Next morning, when Alison came to breakfast, the fisherman noted that he looked curiously pale and asked him the reason. He told him what had happened during the night ... ' "Ah !" said, the fisherman gravely, "Yon must have seen the sawyer's wife. She was found dead under the gallows the night after her husband was hanged. They say that her ghost appears at times, and asks to be rowed down the river, but I never saw it. I forgot tell you about her last night." That morning Alison led his horse up the zig-zag, and from the summit looked down at the Haunted Valley of Narora for the last time. His masterpiece has not been painted. He died within the year. A NIGHT AT NARORA. (1895, August 31).Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918), p. 28. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article196412361
The second time of living at Manly fulltime on land was during the years his health was failing and friends were trying to raise funds to support a rest and cure:
When Victor Daley was living at George-street, Manly, he was sunning himself one morning at his front door. A bunny-merchant happened along, yelling: "Wirarebitl Wirerebit!"
Victor beckoned him across. "Rabbits, sir!" said the hawker. "Yes, I see they are," said the poet. "In-a normal state of health the rabbit is the great curse of our continent," he continued. "Owing to his special enthusiasm for breeding he is widely distributed, and it is said that vast
tracts of erstwhile grass lands have been denuded by reason of his activities." "Buy a pair to-day, sir, nine-pence each?" broke in the rabbito.
"Oh! No thank you," said the poet, "I merely wished to say that whilst alive the rabbit is the curse of the outback — when defunct he is the curse of the street!" — Bowst. Anthology of Anecdote (1920, March 27).Smith's Weekly (Sydney, NSW : 1919 - 1950), p. 22. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article234221427
Smith's Weekly was an Australian tabloid newspaper published from 1919 to 1950. An independent weekly published in Sydney, but read all over Australia, Smith's Weekly was one of Australia's most patriotic newspaper-style magazines. The publication took its name from its founder and chief financer Sir James Joynton Smith, a prominent Sydney figure during World War One, conducting fund-raising and recruitment drives. Its two other founders were theatrical publicist Claude McKay (Williamson's) and journalist Clyde Packer, father of Sir Frank Packer and grandfather of media baron Kerry Packer.
The writer of this column, Claude McKay, Editor in chief 1919-1927, was among those 'Bohemians' Sydney was once famous for. He also remembered Victor writing a National Anthem which has been lost:
Yates. M.H.R., asks the Fed. Govt, to provide a prize for an Australian National Anthem worthy of the country. Half a dozen Australian poets have already won such/prizes' at one time or another, and we are still short, of a National Anthem; Victor Daley once wrote 'one to the order of a publishing firm, and was handsomely paid as pay went. Shortly after a fire destroyed part of the establishment of the firm. Daley met this scribe the same night. "Did you hear?" he said, "Thank God, that anthem's gone!" Anthology of Anecdote (1919, August 30).Smith's Weekly (Sydney, NSW : 1919 - 1950), p. 22. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article234252764
The raising of funds to provide rest:
VICTOR DALEY'S BENEFIT
A meeting of the friends of Mr. Victor Daley, who have taken in hand the organisation of a benefit to enable the well-known writer to take a trip for the good of his health, which has been poorly of late, was held yesterday evening in the Hotel Australia. There was a good attendance, including a number of ladies, who have indicated that they are taking considerable interest In the matter, and will do ail in- their power to make the benefit a real success. The Rev. Father J. Milne Curran presided, and a strong executive was appointed to carry out the affair. VICTOR DALEY'S BENEFIT (1902, March 27). The Australian Star (Sydney, NSW : 1887 - 1909), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229074978
Friends of Victor Daley will regret to hear that the scholarly and brilliant author of 'At Dawn and Dusk' is in rather a bad way in Sydney. His doctor has prescribed a sea trip as necessary to putting the poet on his feet again, and as Victor Daley has not escaped the lot austere that waits the man of letters in Australia, many of his friends in Sydney have combined to make an effort to provide the money. NEWS IN BRIEF. (1902, April 4). Albury Banner and Wodonga Express (NSW : 1896 - 1938), p. 31. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article100609529
VICTOR J. DALY TESTIMONIAL FUND.
the committee propose to hold a first class entertainment in connection with the fund, entitled 'A Bohemian Night,' at the Sydney Town Hall on May 15 next; Concerning the entertainment a ladies, executive committee is shortly to be formed, and a meeting, at which the Mayoress is expected to preside, will be called for an early date at the Town Hall. Apart from this entertainment, subscriptions are being received by the hon. treasurer, Mr. W. M Leod.VICTOR J. DALY TESTIMONIAL FUND. (1902, April 20). Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW : 1895 - 1930), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article126425631
A BOHEMIAN NIGHT.
TO VICTOR J. DALEY.
Come, gather, Australians, from near and from
far,
Salute the sweet Shamrock and bold Waratah,
And let the world see we can boast of a man,
Singing songs that are built on Parnassian
plan,
As gallant and kind as his muse is sublime,
And whose works shall survive the Destruction
of Time.
Come, pay him the tribute we owe to his pen,
This scholarly, cultured, this bravest of men.
Ah, Daley, we owe you far more than we know.
A master of letters — the Future, will show.
The poets who dream and the wild rhymers,
too,
Have banded together to battle for you.
And painters, and sculptors, and journalists
all,
Have readily answered the first bugle call.
Australia shall prove that the living may reap
The reward of high merit in intellect deep.
May health be restored, and be banished all
care,
First bard of Australia, and second nowhere.
NARRANGHI BOORI.
A BOHEMIAN NIGH. (1902, May 10).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 27. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111069161
Mr. Victor Daley is now enjoying a three months', holiday on the Northern Rivers of N.S.W. His admirers will wish him a speedy restoration to health. PERSONAL (1902, June 14). Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 18. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111071709
Victor Daley, although ill, had a wife and children to support and kept writing - in fact most biographers on his life state he wrote tomes when ill to support his family, all of which were ought by the Bulletin and others, partly to support, partly because they loved his work. Many of these continued to appear in publications years after he had passed away:
VICTOR DALEY'S ‘IRISH DAYS.'
The third of the delightful series of reminiscences of 'Irish Days' contributed to the 'Freeman' by Victor J. Daley will appear in our next issue. VICTOR DALEY'S "IRISH DAYS." (1902, June 28). Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 23. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111067622
Kendall on the Clarence.
Victor J. Daley, who was on a visit to Grafton recently, writes in the Bulletin about H. C. Kendall's sojourn in the district. He says : —
Kendall lived at Grafton in his earlier years Old residents to whom I have spoken on the subject seem to have but one recollection of him. He arranged to give a lecture on Australian Literature— an easy matter in those days, one would imagine. When the time arrived he came upon the platform, glared at the audience, gasped— and fled. The chairman on the occasion rose to the rescue with an address on beetles, or some other nauseous but interesting vermin, entitled 'An Hour with the Fluoroscope.' This is practically all that the oldest generation of Grafton remembers in connection with the sweetest of Australian singers. He was employed in the office of Lionel Michael, an old time solicitor, who was also a writer of verse, and whose end was tragic and mysterious. His (Michael’s) body was found floating in the Clarence River one morning. People whispered of foul play, but nothing could be proved. The following-lines, which were found on his office -table, and which' were the last he ever wrote, seemed to confirm the theory that he committed suicide. I copied them from his mouldering gravestone, upon which they are still faintly legible:— Truly my trial has been Bore In sorrow have I woke and slept And held a face of calm before The world that guessed hot that I wept, And yet, somewhere, somehow I know There must be mercy yet for me ; Man will have none for me, I know— . My Father I will go to Thee. Kendall on the Clarence. (1902, August 22). The Clarence River Advocate (NSW : 1898 - 1949), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article121378124
This underlines a 'Lake Daley' harbourside of Manly location as he left Manly and returned to Manly:
Men We Knew and Loved
In a splendidly written article on 'The Beach at Manly' Frank Morton makes the following reference in 'The Triad,' to two men who were well known and loved by Mountaineers, Victor Daley, and Bobbie Luckham: — ''The moon, as I write, is coming up over the rim of the sea. The sea is unutterably calm tonight, still and deeply-heaving like the bosom of a goddess warmed by the reminiscence. The moon is swooning up all coppery-golden, and the still, deep sea croons audibly to her kiss. Oh, dear deep sea!— I love her very much even when I am careless and she comes slithering up with intent to draw me down and suck the life out of me.”
When Victor Daley lived in Manly he found a glad new name for this giant sea of good comfort. He called it Lake Daley. He knew that he alone, among the sons of men in this joyous island, really understood it. His sympathy was very close and tender at that time, for he was soon to adventure on the deeper tide that springs from the central fount of love and teaches an unguessable distance to Love's infinity. In the flesh I only met Daley once; but I knew him for my brother then, and I know him more Intimately for my brother now. His footsteps are no longer to be traced along these' sands; but somewhere still in blessed confidence his footsteps stray. A man's life must be gauged and reckoned-up by the love he wins, the love he gives. So Daley lived a good life, made a good death. God keep him!
A few paces from my house, another brother died. Silently, fearlessly, as he would have chosen to die, in his sleep. Bob Luckham also was a poet, though no writer: he lived his poetry, he was gentle, comprehending, warm with kindness. He had been thirty years and more attached to the commercial side of the 'Bulletin'. Deep sorrow had touched his life: and not embittered him. Grim tragedy had gazed at him with cold impenetrable eyes, and he had not been afraid. I couple in all good faith the names of these men, whom knowing slightly, I knew so well, the poet and the advertising specialist. There is much poetry In advertising, as some day I hope to show; and there is, alas! Home advertising in much poetry, Bob Luckham's life was the standing advertisement of his simple goodness. He loved Manly, and spent the happiest years of his life here. Every morning, wet or fine, winter or summer, he went into the surf. Every Sunday found him not ashamed, to go to church. Every Saturday night in the season he went to the Dandies little show along the Steyne. Other nights he retired early. His habits were simple, his tastes unaffected. He was one of the kindest creatures breathing, and now that he breathes more freely he must have good memories of this sunny place. All men were his friends, he had no enemies at all. I shall always remember with pleasure...Men We Knew and Loved (1916, October 27). The Blue Mountain Echo (NSW : 1909 - 1928), p. 3. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108044492
Living at George Street Manly appears to be the second time Victor Daley resided at Manly, a residential term of a few years this time, in between sojourns for his health away from Manly - some of these references to Victor Daley spelling his surname in its original format:
People interested in the welfare of our old friend Victor Daly should make for the Ocean Beach, Manly, any morning about 6 30. Like a kid he revels in the water, and about two weeks hence none of his old friends will know him— he is getting younger every day. Siftings. (1903, February 7). The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney, NSW : 1900 - 1919), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128800346
The appearance of this little note is interesting as Manly Council did not allow daytime bathing (after 7 a.m.) until later that same year. The article 'Surfing and Celebrities' (in full below) also refers to the gentleman many attribute finally being able to bathe in Manly in daylight to, although clearly bathing and baths were established prior to then - a practice Mr. Daley had taken up by the Summer of 1903 - perhaps in support of the winning ways of another old chum:
A Battler
" Bill " Gocher, artist, poet, journalist, author, and many things beside, died at Newtown the other day. He was well known in the Inky Way. Everybody liked him, and enjoyed his bright, cultured conversation and stories. He was one of the legion of Bulletin bards and paragraphists, and a bosom chum of Victor Daley. He had an extensive knowledge of finance. His life-size portrait of Cardinal Moran brought him much fame. He will always be remembered with gratitude by the Manlyites, as he battled with success for, the right of the people to surf-bath at any time, and his efforts in this direction lead to the permanency of Manly as a seaside resort and to the increased valuation of the place. OUR SYDNEY LETTER. (1921, August 24). Crookwell Gazette (NSW : 1885 - 1954), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article222392479
Another pen-name, dreamed up during his residence at Manly, also gives us a Daley poem on Manly:
I Wonder Why the Poets.
(For the 'Freeman.')
I wonder why the poets
Are ever writing down
Impressions of the country,
And nothing of the town ?
There may be inspiration
In many things out West,
But, hang it, try the city,
And give the bush a rest.
Try Manly, Middle Harbour—
Of waters blue as heaven,
A soul-inspiring theme ;
Try Bondi, Coogee, Bronte,
Where little children play,
And 'city men and women ^ '
Pass happy hours away.
A thousand other places
On which the, mind could dwell—
Inlet, bay, and estuary—
On hill, and vale, and doll. :
For Sydney has, been dowered
By fairy hands with gifts
That, to the patriotic,
Exalteth and uplifts.
Now, Lawson lives at Manly,
But never song sings he
Of that unrivalled village
Which overlooks the sea.
The Brighton of Australia,
A rendezvous for those
Who, weary and dejected,
Go there to seek repose.
Now, Lawson loves to linger
With shadows in Out Back, ?
And all the poetasters
Just follow in his track—
Get lost among the Mallee,
Call ev'ry Cocky 'Bill,'
And in imagination
Ride outlaws down a hill.
I do not wish to cavil
At bards within our ken;
I merely make suggestion
That- ev'ry now and then
They get away from cattle,
Dead sheep, and squatter run,
And sing a song of cities.
The bush is overdone.
J. M. DRUM. I Wonder Why the Poets. (1903, February 21). Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 29. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108254096
Victor Daley, acting on Mr. J. M. Drum's advice, given metrically in a recent issue of the 'Freeman,' has written a poem on Manly.EVERYDAY NOTES (1903, March 21).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 18. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108255038
... Manly seems favorable; to the development of the imagination. Poets and story-tellers flourish there — so do the malicious prevaricators, the mere buzz flies and carrion insects of literature. The Grafter's Wallet (1903, March 21).The Worker (Wagga, NSW : 1892 - 1913), p. 1. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145880596
This reference gives some insight into the influence his sister, to whom he dedicated his 1898 book to, coinciding with his own tastes - one of his daughters is reported in some snippets as living or visiting her when he passed away in December 1905. This also confirms Victor Daley loved Manly as he returned to and lived there on more than one occasion:
Victor Daley, the poet, returned from his South Seas trip, at a little reception at his Manly residence the other day, had some interesting incidents to tell of life on the Solomon Islands (Writes C.C.). - The bright-polished savage does not exist in these isles, When a Solomon native is thumped, a cloud of dust arises from his skin as if he were a shaken mat, the beautiful blue ocean being little used for bathing purposes. The natives wore as little as possible, and employ their leisure largely an chewing the betel-nut. Men, women, and children indulge in this practice, the result being rather disgusting as the red juice stains lips and chin the colour of blood. Mr. Daley believes that it would be comparatively easy to get into the practice, which, by the way, seems perfectly harmless. The betel nut does not intoxicate but imparts a pleasant sense of warmth and comfort to the system. In his drawing-room. which is furnished in Eastern style, Mr. Daley keeps a few poisoned arrows for his enemies, who, if touched by them, would, linger some days in agony before expiring. I was consequently much gratified when the poet graciously prevented me from playing with the sharper end of the weapons. TOPICS FOR THE BLOCK. (1903, October 17). The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), p. 44. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article138692904
A special memorial edition of John Farrell's poems is being published at £1 1s. The issue is to be limited to 500 subscribers, and applications with the amount may be forwarded to Miss Rose Scott, 204 Jersey-road, Woollahra; Senator J. P. Gray, Ashfield; Bert Stevens, 76 Denison Street, Woollahra; T. Courtney, Daily Telegraph Office ; Victor Daly, Manly : and numerous others. Oil and Vinegar. (1904, February 12). Quiz (Adelaide, SA : 1900 - 1909), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166412785
The third time Daley dwelt at Manly is reported to be aboard the yacht Vesta with Henry Lawson and others. This yacht, apparently moored near Manly Wharf, was beached during a storm in the Summer of 1896. That incident is interesting as later, when Mr. Lawson was resident at Manly during one of his revisits to this poet's common ground, the French barque Vincennes ran aground on Manly Beach on the night of Thursday, May 24, 1906.
The living on the Vesta takes place in 1898, when Daley has returned from Melbourne again for the publishing of At Dawn and Dusk, and, already ill, spends days resting and writing and swabbing the deck on occasion prior to taking up a government clerical post. Some sources state this yacht, described as a schooner, was owned by the then governor. Research indicates a Manly gentleman who also owned the Aquarium business had ownership - more on that in the upcoming Henry Lawson's page on his Manly Days. Henry, called by those closer to him 'Harry' was one of those who ventured into Middle Harbour with Daley.
Manly Ferry Wharf from Sydney, ca. 1885-1890 / photographed by Arthur K. Syer. Image No.: a844067, courtesy State Library of NSW.
Manly by Charles Bayliess circa 1897. Image No.: a089683h, courtesy State Library of NSW
There is also one other Manly and places north of there connection in one of Australia's premier artisans who was also a member of the Bohemian Dawn to Dusk-ers:
Victor Daly's poem on Bohemians, written for the lllingworth night, is one of those easy-flowing melodic things which seem to ooze from beneath V. J. D.'s pen without the slightest effort, and frequent and often. Another artist in whose life, too, ' beneath, the river's song, there sounds the sobbing of the sea,' bade fair to turn the entertainment into a wholesale advt. for himself, but on the foregoing grounds, or groans, I forbear from dilating harshly.WOMAN'S WHIMS. (1900, September 2).Truth (Sydney, NSW : 1894 - 1954), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article168001979
Mr. Nelson lllingworth, the well-known Sydney sculptor, died suddenly at Harbord, near Manly, on Saturday morning. He was aged 63 years. At the time of his death Mr. Illingworth was engaged on plans for the Henry Lawson memorial statue competition. The important works executed by him included busts of Archbishop Saumarez Smith, Sir Dennison Miller, Cardinal Moran, Lord Hopetoun, Sir Thomas Hughes, Sir Edmund Barton, Mr. B. R. Wise, Sir Julian Salomons, Sir Henry Parkes, Field-Marshal Sir William Birdwood, Victor Daly, and Henry Lawson. OBITUARY. (1926, June 28). The Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929), p. 8. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article56571989
Henry Lawson and Nelson Illingworth, 1904 - Image No.: a4218022h- courtesy State Library of NSW
Victor Daley returned to Sydney from Queanbeyan in mid to late 1881 where he had been working on the Queanbeyan Times with John Farrell, also a superlative wordsmith and poet, and with whom he remained friends. Some sources cite him working at Sydney Punch by mid 1881 although the man he was traveklling with, Caddy, remained in Queanbeyan until late Spring 1881.
Daley first met Theo Argles then - in Richard (Dick) Thatcher's Hotel. Mr. Farrell's good name led to these rascals sojourn at Mosman:
The Journalists of Old Sydney.
By One of Them.
One of the many tales told of the old Bohemians of the days of the eighties was one in which the late John Farrell quite unwittingly figured. He was at the time brewing sound Australian beer at Queanbeyan (the village so long represented in past Parliaments by E. W. O'Sullivan), and came occasionally to Sydney with his good helpmate on a holiday-jaunt.
At that time the shores of Mosman's Bay were wild and uncultivated, with here and there a house, perched on a tall crag, and surrounded picturesquely by a fine garden, in which fruit-trees flourished, immune from the predacious hands of school urchins. Upon an empty mansion of this character fell the longing eyes of 'The Pilgrim,' of Caddy, and of one or two others of their Bedouin breed. They determined upon that particular house for their palace in Bohemia ; but so well known were they, the terror and despoilers of trusting landlords, that the task of securing the keys appeared hopeless. Then came to Sydney, on a holiday jaunt, Poet and Brewer John Farrell and his good wife. They met the Bedouins in due course, and were requested to Inspect the Mosman house. The Farrells felt flattered, fell Into the snare, obeyed their definite instructions to the letter, obtained the keys, Inspected the house in the company of the landlord, and engaged it in the name of Theodore Argyles or Charles Wesley Caddy (It matters little), making a deposit on account of the rent.
The landlord was delighted at securing such respectable tenants. John Farrell, good easy man, took little note of anything in particular, and then took the boat back to Sydney, full of good opinions about the urbanity of city landlords. The keys were handed to the Chief of the Bedouins, and they immediately took possession.
Who shall describe the midnight pandemonium which disturbed the calm solitudes of Mosman ? The fruit-trees were denuded of their product, the garden was thick-sown with empty provision tins, and the fences were destroyed for the replenishment of fires, No bailiff dared molest them, for they had Installed a huge mastiff, fierce as a Hun in warfare, and terrible In aspect as the 'Hound of the Baskervilles.' But what the landlord could' not do, ennui- did for him. The frolic burnt Itself out to veritable white ashes, and the Bedouins, like their fathers before them, folded their tents and silently stole away. The Journalists of Old Sydney. (1905, July 6). The Catholic Press (Sydney, NSW : 1895 - 1942), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article104905720
This Mosman reference is pertinent to Daley as Frank Molloy's book Victor J. Daley: A Life (Crossing Press, 2004) cites September 5th, 1884 as the day Daley was married to Elizabeth Ann Thompson. Mr. Molloy has this reference from another historical work and this date, the same as that given for Daley's birthdate and christening date may or may not be accurate. Elizabeth Ann appears to have been one of four Thompson females who arrived per the Jessie Munn in February 1859 when just four years of age.
What was Sydney and the Manly of 1881 and 1882 like? What was happening?
A full description of Sydney itself, and what was happening enterprise wise, appears in a January 1st, 1881 article, with accompanying engraving/ drawing courtesy of the Australian Town and Country Journal - and runs under 'Extras'.
One of the highlights for many would have been the 1881 visit of Prince George of Wales, aged 15, with his older brother, Prince Albert Victor of Wales, aged 17. They also visited Pittwater, boarding The Pelican at what was to become the Newport Wharf after being coached north through Manly. A scene revisited by some of these Manly Bards at the same time a year later.
Photo number 44a. Randwick [Visit of Princes Albert & George 16 July 1881] from Album: Views of Sydney and its streets, 1868-1881 / compiled by John Lane Mullins, Image No.: a1939105h, courtesy State Library of NSW.
In Manly:
Public Park for Manly.
A well-attended meeting of the ratepayers of Manly, was held last night, in the Ivanhoe Park pavilion, his Worship the Mayor (Mr, Alfred Hilder, J.P.) presiding. Alter stating the object of the meeting, viz., to consider the advisability of procuring a recreation ground for the use of the residents and visitors. The chairman read some correspondence from the Colonial Secretary, from which it appeared that three different localities had been proposed. The first was at Fairy Bower, where about 10 acres of land would be avail' able ; another at East Brighton, about 20 acres being obtainable there ; and the third proposition was for having the park on about 18 acres of ground near the national school. The last-named site appeared to find most favour, Messrs. Murray and! Phillip Cohen addressing the meeting in support of 4 it. The Hon. George Thornton, M.L.C., was greatly, in favour of the proposed park, and pointed out how beneficial it would be if one were provided. Eventually, on the motion of Mr. Murray, it was decided that the site near the national school was the best and would be most convenient for all, and that if possible the land should be secured. It was resolved to request the chairman to forward the result of the meeting to Sir Henry Parkes. After a hearty vote of thanks had been accorded the chairman tor his impartial conduct in the chair, the meeting terminated. Public Park for Manly. (1881, January 13).Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 2. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107209441
MANLY BEACH RESERVE.
To the Editor.
Sir, — As one who formerly resided at Manly and had many opportunities of observing the beautiful spots around it, and still having a lively interest in its future progress, I must say I felt great surprise in reading- in your paper the result of a meeting held to determine on a sight for a public park. Who ever would have thought that the tight decided upon would have been thought of except by those particularly interested. I would ask, are the great mass of visitors who may wish to visit this beautiful watering place to be debarred the pleasure of having a reserve in which they might have the grandest panoramic view that could be witnessed in all New South Wales or Australia, and have to put up with one in which little view can be obtained of, the surrounding country for the sake of the general public I must enter my protest against the site chosen, and hope the Government of the day will look to their interests, and only have public money granted upon the purchase of a park that would become the admiration of the present and future generations. — Yours, &o., A LOVER OF MANLY. MANLY BEACH RESERVE. (1881, January 20). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107211414
PUBLIC PARK, MANLY.
To the Editor.
Sir, — So much has been already said about this and the little jobs which were attempted to surround it, that to raise it up again would almost 'stink in your nostrils.' However, when we see 'Fairy Bower,' which is all rocks and sand, hills and dales, without a level spot on it, bought at a few hundreds, too, and so generously placed, at the Government dispose at many thousands, something is up. Happily this is declined though. When next ire see Little Manly, which adjoins hundreds of acres of Government land, whose cost and selling price will keep pace with the Bower, but whose beauty and adaptability of course far surpassed, it— is placed at the Government service, at a great sacrifice for the public good, something is in the wind. Unfortunately this is still kept dangling. Is it as old saying, where the carcasse is, the eagle will be — so with the undertaker. When you see him hanging about a corner, there's a dead 'un near at hand; but where you see 'Jack of both sides' entertaining men with influence, keep your eye on him, watch your public park and wharf. I offer this warning: through you, sir, to the inhabitants of Manly, for look where these public benefactors have already moved your school to under the cloak being mote central, but only to sell some of their own land and increase the value of the rest. It is well known that for 20 years the old school suited all for the town of Manly will never extend towards quarantine, our greatest drawback (where this park is wanted to be forced on n*-, but mast posh in the direction of the spot so unanimously and wisely chosen by the inhabitants at the public meeting for that purpose, viz. — adjoining the old school, which, it the Government act wisely, will retain, rebuild, and scout these land jobbers. — Yours, &c., BOZ. PUBLIC PARK, MANLY. (1881, February 23). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107213398
Monster Shark at Manly Beach.
Some children had a very narrow escape of falling victims to a voracious shark on Saturday last. They were bathing at Shell Beach, on the ocean side of Manly Beach, when a shark was seen approaching. An alarm was given, and the children fortunately managed to get out of danger, as the shark came on at a tremendous speed. Mr. Evans, of the New Brighton Hotel, and George Sly, Jun., fisherman, rushed it as it lay stranded, and Sly ran a harpoon through it, and held fast until they were able to dispatch the monster. On being opened its stomach was found to contain two young sharks, 36 pieces of offal, a bucket, and a sougiebag. The shark was 13ft 6in long, and its jaw, which contained seven rows of teeth, measures 28in by 18in. It is now on exhibit at the New Brighton Hotel, Manly. Monster Shark at Manly Beach. (1881, March 21). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107214170
Bathing at Manly.
Mr. Cohen, a publican at Manly, was fined 1s at the Water Police Court this morning for having bathed in the sea shortly after 7 o’clock on the morning of the 20th December. There was no one in the vicinity at the time, and Mr. Cohen was apparently very much annoyed that he should have bees summoned to answer the charge. Bathing at Manly. (1881, December 30).Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 3. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107226302
On Saturday the 1st of October, 1881:
WILD FLOWER SHOW AT MANLY
A novelty in floral shows was successfully conducted at Manly on Saturday, when an extensive and admirably arranged display of wild flowers took place in the pavilion, Ivanhoe Park. Shows of garden flowers have been so frequent that unless held under exceptionally advantageous circumstances, they are usually only moderately patronised. An exhibition of flowers indigenous to the colony, however, ' has the merit of being almost, if not quite new, and the present is, moreover, a very favourable time for collecting specimens of the beautiful native flora, just now in full bloom is the immediate neighbourhood of some of the suburbs. To Mr. C. H. Hayes, a resident of Manly, belongs, we believe, the credit of inaugurating the movement which was so successfully carried out on Saturday. That gentleman has long been desirous of seeing a display of native flowers by those who possessed the skill of tastefully arranging them, as he felt confident that the effect of such a display would prove an agreeable surprise even to those who were in the habit of collecting or seeing those flowers frequently. The appeal for increased contributions to the fund for the englargement of St Mathew's Church, Manly, afforded an excellent opportunity for putting the project into execution and at the same time affording assistance in a worthy cause.
The result exceeded the expectations of the most sanguine promoters. The plan adopted was an excellent one in a money-making sense, being a combination of the principal features of a horticultural show and a charity bazaar. A number of energetic ladies had stalls allotted to them, as at a bazaar, with carte blanche to decorate those stalls according to their respective tastes, and exhibit as many native flowers as they could procure. The exhibits principally took the form of bouquets, button-holes, wreaths, mottoes, and baskets, and these were offered for sale, or raffled, from prices ranging from 6d. and 1s. for buttonholes, to 10s. and 5s. for bouquets. The stalls wore ranged along each side of the building and down the centre, in the following order, commencing at the entrance:- Public school children, under the direction of Miss Flashman; Mrs. C. H. Hayes, Mrs. Augustus Morris, Miss Underwood, Mrs. Austin, Mrs. Geo. Thornton, Mrs. Alfred Hilder, Mrs. John Woods, Mrs. Willis, and Mrs. Cohen. All these ladies appeared to have devoted their best efforts to make the stalls attractive, with the most gratifying results, the only drawback being the impossibility of the visitors properly seeing the display, in consequence of the densely crowded state of the pavilion.
At noon the exhibition was opened by Sir John Hay, who congratulated the people of Manly upon the magnificent displays, and the admirable manner in which the arrangements had been carried out. He believed the show would be an agreeable surprise to many, and expressed the hope that similar exhibitions would be made annual occurrences.
Early in the afternoon the steamers from Sydney were crowded with excursionists. It was calculated that upwards of 2000 people went from Sydney during the afternoon. As the building in which the show was held was not a very huge one. all the available promenade space was quickly overcrowded, and numbers of intending visitors were unable to gain admittance. To add to this drawback, the building was very feebly lighted, and the result of the overcrowding and bad light was that the effect of the floral displays was somewhat marred. Sufficient, however, was teen to indicate that by artistic arrangement an exceedingly attractive display can be made with wild flowers and shrubs. The varieties of flowers shown included waratah, native lose (both red and white), zamia, rock lilies, mustard flower, christmas bells, white heath, flannel flower, star of the south, and a hundred other varieties. Some splendid specimens of the gigantic lily (Doryanthus excelsior), from the National Park, at Port Hacking, were sent by the trustees ; Messrs. Searle and Sons sent (for exhibition only) a very fine bouquet of wild flowers; Mr. A. J. Ralston exhibited a cutting of the Kennedy a coccínea, a west Australian flower very rarely seen in this colony ; Mr. W. M. Jackson sent a fine cutting of the white native rose, which was disposed of at a high price ; and Mr. John Sands sent (for exhibition only) a number of clever drawings of native flowers, by Mrs. Rowan and other artists. The attractions of the show were enhanced by the use of some splendid vases which were lent for the occasion by Messrs. Lassettor and Co., Meters. Webb and Sons, and Messrs. Holdsworth, Gardyne, and Co. At one end of the room was a pretty fernery, in which were shown tree ferns, birds' nest ferns, staghorns, rock lilies, and other specimens for which the district is famous. These were arranged by Mr. Goodenough, gardener. In the centre of the pavilion a prettily decorated fountain, lent for the occasion by Messrs. Lassetter and Co., formed an agreeable feature. The greenery and decoration surrounding the fountain was the work of Mrs. Percy Rowe.
The walls of the room were ornamented with flags (the American flag being draped in black in respect to the memory of the late President), wreathing, and a beautifully worked inscription, in lilypilly leaves, extending round the whole interior of the building-namely, " Consider the lilies how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, yet I say unto you, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
This work was the result of the combined efforts of the various ladies connected with the stalls. The prize for the best collection of flowers was awarded to Mrs. Willis ; the prize for the best arranged collection was awarded to Mrs. Hayes, and Mrs. Forde received a prize for the best water colour drawing of native flowers. A number of other prizes were awarded by the judges-Mr. C. Moore, Director of the Botanic Gardens, and Dr. Bennett, F.R.G.S. ; but no complete list of the awards was available. Among the gentlemen who worked hard to secure the success of the project were Messrs. C. H. Hayes, Augustus Morris, W. Speer, P. Rowe, Lough, Francis, Austin, Hilder, Whethani, and C. Wagstaff.
In the evening a concert in support of the church enlargement fund took place in the Oddfellows' Hall, and, as a considerable number of visitors from town remained, the hall was densely crowded. Among those who took part were Messrs. James, H. R. Woods, H. F. Francis, Pitt, Rev. Dr. Ellis, Miss Sachs, Mrs. H. R. Woods, and Mrs. Percy Rowe. The concert was of a thoroughly enjoyable nature, and nearly every number was encored. WILD FLOWER SHOW AT MANLY. (1881, October 3 - Monday). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13495957
Wild Flower Show Manly
A NOVELTY in floral shows was recently introduced at Manly, near Sydney, when an extensive and admirably arranged display of wild flowers took place in the pavilion, Ivanhoe Park. The show was held in aid of the fund for enlargement of St. Matthew's Church, Manly, and the plan adopted was an excellent one in a moneymaking sense, being a combination of the principal features of a horticultural show and a charity bazaar. A number of energetic ladies had stalls allotted to them, as at a bazaar, with carte blanche to decorate those stalls according to their respective tastes, and exhibit as many native flowers as they could procure. The exhibits principally took the form of bouquets, button-holes, wreaths, mottoes, and baskets, and these were offered for sale, or raffled, from prices ranging from 6d. and Is. for button-holes, to 10s. and 15s. for bouquets. The stalls were ranged along each side of the building and down the centre, in the following order, commencing at the entrance :-Public school children, under the direction of Miss Flashman ; Mrs. C. H. Hayes, Mrs. Augustus Morris, Miss Underwood, Mrs. Austin, Mrs. Geo. Thornton, Mrs. Alfred Hilder, Mrs. John Woods, Mrs. Willis, and Miss Cohen. All these ladies appeared to have devoted their best efforts to make the stalls attractive, with the most gratifying results, the only drawback being the impossibility of many of the visitors properly seeing the display in consequence of the densely crowded state of the pavilion. The varieties of flowers shown included waratah, native rose (both' red and white), zamia, rock lilies, mustard flower, Christmas bells, white heath, flannel flower, star of the south, and a hundred other varieties. Some splendid specimens of the gigantic lily (Doryanthus excelsior) from the National Park, at Port Hacking, were sent by the trustees ; Messrs. Searle and Sons sent (for exhibition only) a very fine bouquet of wild flowers ; Mr. A. J. Ralston exhibited a cutting of the Kennedya coccínea, a West Australian flower very rarely seen in this colony ; and Mr. W. M. Jackson sent a fine cutting of the white native rose, which was disposed of at a high price.
THE NATIVE WILD FLOWER SHOW AT MANLY. Wild Flower Show at Manly. (1881, October 29). Illustrated Sydney News and New South Wales Agriculturalist and Grazier (NSW : 1872 - 1881), p. 16. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article64974679
Sydney in 1882, apart from being the year the Garden Palace, so recently celebrated by Argles in an article, burnt in 40 minutes on the morning of September 22, and the year of the Bulletin libel cases, opened for Manly with a spot of bother which added credence to what was reported to be happening at Clontarf. Manly's popularity as a playground, coupled with those who cannot or should not drink, led to some push and shove one afternoon on January 1st, 1882, and this led on to months of 'larrikinism' that was stepped on by the residents when it occurred in the then village or on one of the steamers bringing visitors:
The larrikin Development at Manly.
THE residents of Manly are not going to allow their pretty suburb to become a hotbed of larrikins. In order to show their views of the late outbreak, a meeting was held at the Oddfellows' Hall, Manly, on Wednesday evening, in accordance with a requisition presented to Mr. C. H. Hayes, the acting Mayor, who occupied the chair, and explained the nature of the object in view. He regretted that they had not met to consider a more pleasant subject, but necessity for the meeting having arisen, he trusted that the results would have a beneficial effect. He hoped sincerely that such outrages on order and decency as occurred on New Year's Day would not prevail amongst them again.
Their suburb was the resort of pleasure-seekers of all classes ; and in their interests, as well as those of the residents generally, he hoped that on future holidays no drunkenness, rioting, or indecent conduct would be permitted. Messrs. John Woods, J. B. Smithers, J. Hough, P. Cohen, J. W. Small, A. Morris, the Revs. R. S. Willis and J. Olley, and others addressed the meeting, and the scenes which had been enacted, and which had been loudly complained of, were commented on severely. Resolutions were affirmed unanimously that a deputation should wait upon the Government to solicit increased police protection during public holidays, and to prohibit dancing in unlicensed pavilions. A resolution was introduced to the effect that the most effectual moans for suppressing larrikinism was the application of the lash ; and eventually an amendment approving of more stringent measures than existed at present for reducing larrikinism to a minimum was accepted. The Larrikin Development at Manly. (1882, January 21). Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1907), p. 16. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70964601
Manly Beach more popular than ever. It is said that since the new Licensing Act came into operation about 500 extra passengers have been carried on Sundays. Who are they, and what do they want at Manly ? MOND. TUESD. WED. THURS. FRID. SAT. SUND. THE WEEK (1882, April 15). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 594. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article162032524
Old Ben of Manly.
On Monday Mr. Benjamin Skinner, of Manly Beach, set off in the Cuzco, to visit Torquay, in Devonshire, England, his native place, which he has not seen for nearly 45 years. 'Old Ben,' as he is familiarly called, has spent nearly the whole of the last mentioned period at Manly, his first situation in the colony being as one of the crow of the Pearl, yacht, the property of the late Mr. Want. As a mark of respect the Port Jackson Steam Shipping Company lent the Mystery to Mr. Skinner's friends in order that they might accompany him to the Heads. Nearly 250 people, amongst them being: gentlemen of high social station, went in the Mystery and loudly cheered ' Old Ben ' as the vessels steamed side by side to the Heads, and thus testified to the high esteem in -which he is held by all classes of the community. "Old Ben" of Manly. (1882, April 26).Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 5. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107986930
SEA-WALL AT MANLY.
A deputation, consisting of Aldermen Hayes and Barker, representing the municipality of Manly, waited on the Secretary for Works, on Friday, re-questing Government assistance in building a retaining-wall from the Steyne Hotel to Fairy Bower. Owing to the municipality having been incorporated in January it had missed its pound to pound subsidy. Moreover, they looked on the work as one of a national character. Mr. Lackey said the grant of the money involved two principles - first, whether the retaining-wall would not destroy the beach, which was a pleasure resort; and, secondly, whether this would not be the thin end of the wedge for building a wall all round the bay. However, in every case the money would have to be voted by Parliament and he had instructed the Engineer for Harbours and Rivers to prepare an estimate of the work, which he would lay before the Cabinet. SEA-WALL AT MANLY. (1882, October 6).Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107994306
THE BATHS AT LITTLE MANLY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.
Sir,-Permit me, through the columns of your influential paper, to call attention to the disgracefully insecure state of the baths at Little Manly.
On inquiry I learn that the barriers surrounding the baths had a large breach made in them some time in May last, and yet nothing has been done to repair the damage.
The present unsafe state of the baths puts all pleasure in swimming out of the question, as, if you are brave enough to venture upon a "header" off the springboard behind the broken barrier, it is impossible to dispel the feeling that a hungry shark may be lying in ambush ready to pounce upon you.
My object in writing on this subject is not to cast blame upon anyone, but simply to avert a catastrophe and minister to the comfort of the public. A very trifling outlay would suffice to stop the gap by means of two or three doubles of wire setting, heavily weighted to the bottom, and secured by fastenings on a level with the top of the barriers, which still retain their position.
It is to be hoped that these necessary repairs will be carried out without delay, find that those at whose door the obvious duty lies of attending to the matter will not put it off till awakened from their lethargy by the cry of some heart-broken sufferers.
I am, &c.,
AN AGGRIEVED VISITOR.
Manly, October 21. THE BATHS AT LITTLE MANLY. (1882, October 26). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 5. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13519409
We understand that provision has also been made for the immediate retirement of Senior-constable John Carton, the trooper who has been stationed at Manly Beach for the last 15 or 16 years. POLICE VETERANS. (1882, May 2). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 7. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13510340
CARTON. — May 23, at his residence, Manly Beach, John Carton, in the 47th year of his age, leaving a sorrowing wife and five children,also many friends, to mourn their loss. On his soul sweet Jesus have mercy. Family Notices (1882, June 3). Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 11. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111318396
Sunday Drinking at Manly.
Mr. William Bagnall licensee of the Square and Compass hotel, Manly, yesterday applied to the licensing court for the renewal of the license held by him. Mr. Gannon appeared on behalf of the applicant, and Mr. Pigott opposed on behalf of certain residents of Manly, who by petition set forth that two hotels - one at either end of the street — were quite sufficient. Secondly, that the house objected to injured the respectability of the neighbourhood ; thirdly, that church services were occasionally disturbed by a number of drunken men; and fourthly, that the applicant was a person who did not conduct his house properly. It was only fair, however Mr. Pigott said, to state that those objections did not apply solely to the house, for the renewal of whose license application was now being made. Mr. Gannon contended that the objections were not made in the proper form, arguments ensued. Mr. Dillon decided that the objections were admissable, and evidence was then taken. The Rev. Robert S. Willis, clergyman of the Church of England at Manly Beach, opposed the application because he had seen on one occasion a crowd of drunken men in front of the hotel on Sunday, and on another occasion had seen a crowd of men with their coats off lying in the roadway, but they were sober, while two men convicted of disturbing the church service. Mr. Mitchell, a resident, of Manly disposed he had seen half-drunken men in yachting costume in the verandah of applicant's house on Sundays, and had seen intoxicated men come out of the house After a short consultation the bench granted the application. Sunday Drinking at Manly. (1882, May 3).Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108203009
1882 was also when Mr. Daley's poems begin appearing in The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser and country papers:
Years Ago.
The old dead flowers of bygone summers,
The old sweet songs that are no more sung,
The rose-red dawns that were welcome comers
When you and I and the world were young,
Are lost, O love, to the light for ever.
And seen no more of the moon or sun.
For seas divide, and the seasons sever,
And twain are we that of old were one.
O fair lost love when the ship went sailing
Across the seas in the years agone, _ _
And seaward-set were the eyes unquailing
And landward-looking the faces wan.
My heart went back as a dove goes homeward
'With wings aweary to seek its nest,
While fierce sea-eagles arc flying foamward
And storm-winds whiten the surge's crest.
And far inland for a farewell pardon
Flew on and on while the ship went South ;
The rose was red in the red-rose garden,
And red the rose of your laughing mouth.
But no word came on the wind in token
Of love that lasts till the end ; and so
My heart returned to me bruised and broken,
From you my love of the long ago.
The green fields seemed in the distance growing
To silken squares on a weaver's loom,
As over sea came the land wind blowing
The faint sweet scent of the clover bloom.
A rarer odour to me it carried.
In subtle delicate way to tell
Of you, ere you and the world were married—
The lilac-odour you loved so well.
Again, I saw you beneath the blooms of
Those lilac-trees in the garden old.
Ah me ! each tree is a mark for tombs of
Dead dreams and memories still and cold.
And Death comes there with his breath scent-laden,
And gath'ring gently the blossoms shed
Yin guise of Autumn, the brown-browed maiden),
With your and my dead buries his dead.
O fairer far than the fair ideal
Of him who imaged the foam-born Queen,
In foam-white marble— a dream made real—
To me were you in those years I ween.
Your lips were redder than night -shade berries,
That burn in borders of hedgegrowed lanes,
And sweeter for than the sweet wild cherries
The June sun flushes with crimson stains.
And gray your eyes as a cuckoo's wings were—
A grav soft shadowing deeps profound,
Where thoughts that reached to the heart of things were,
And love lay dreaming though seeming drowned.
Twin-tulip breasted like her the tread of
Whose feet made music in Paphos fair,
The world to me was not worth a thread of
Your brown ambrosial braided hair.
Mayhap you loved me at one time truly,
And I was jealous and you were proud,
But mine the love of the king in Thule,
Till death, and yours— sleeps well in shroud.
So night came down like a sombre raven,
And southward ever the ship sailed on,
Till glad green fields and lessening haven
Grew faint and faded like ghosts at dawn.
As fields of Heaven eternal blooming,
Those flowerful fields of my English land,
On midnight visions are still perfuming
All wild waste places and seas of sand.
And still in seasons of storm and thunder,
In strange lands under your land and mine ;
And though our ways have been wide asunder,
In calm and temp'est and shade and shine,
Your face I see as I saw the last time—
As one borne space-ward on wings of light,
With eyes turned hack to a sight of past time,
Beholds for ever that self-same sight.
But scorn has died on your lips, and through you
Shines out star-bright an immortal grace,
As though God them to His heaven drew you,
And sent an angel to take your place.
I plucked a rose from the tree you cherished,
My heart's blood ebbing has kept it red,
And all my hopes with its scent have perished ;
Why mourn them now — are the dead not dead !
And yet. God knows, as this rose I kiss, you
May feel the kisses across the sea;
And soul to soul for the larger issue,
Your soul may stand with the soul of me.
Unknown to you for the strings of Being
Are not so easily snapped or torn.
And we may journey with eyes unseeing
On paths that meet in the years unborn.
Farewell, fair love. New lovers never
Shall suck out of my heart with lips rose-curled ;
For you remain unto me forever
The one sweet woman in all the world.
VICTOR J. DALEY.
LITERATURE (1882, March 4). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 333. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article162030589
Years Ago
Victor J. Daley
POETRY. (1882, March 10). The Burrowa News (NSW : 1874 - 1951), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107929556
It is this poem that is referred to in the 'Personal Items' column of The Bulletin on 11 March 1882. A brief unsigned paragraph, more than likely penned by J.F. Archibald, not only notes the poem, 'Years Ago', but asserts these 'melodious verses' were composed by 'the rising poet of this country'. As Daley had already met Argles, who had already made himself comfortable at The Bulletin in more than a few roles, it may be supposed that Archibald already knew who the poet was.
This one stems from the first Manly visit months and times:
Brunette.
When trees in spring
Are blossoming,
My lady wakes
From dreams, -whose light
Made dark days bright,
For their sweet sakes.
Yet in her eyes *
A shadow lies
Of bygone mirth ;
And still she seems
To walk in dreams
And not on earth.
Home men may hold
That hair of gold
Is lovelier
Than darker sheen':
Such have not seen **
My lady's hair.
Her eyes are bright,
Her bosom white
As the sea-foam,
On sharp rocks sprayed ;
Her mouth is made
Of honeycomb.
And whose seeks
In her dusk cheeks
May see Love's sign,—
A blush that glows
Like a red rose
Beneath brown wine.
Victor- J. Daley.
LITERATURE (1882, July 1). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article161925706
A favourite Daley poem kept here illustrates the whole ethos of the gentleman during the year when he must have realised he would not beat the disease that was wasting his life:
SELECTED POETRY,
HIS Mate.
[VICTOR J. DALEV.]
It may hare been, a fragment of that higher
Truth, dreams, at times, disclose ;
It may hare been to Fond Illusion nig her—
But thus the story goes :
A fierce sun glared upon a gaunt land,
stricken
With barrenness and thirst,
Where Nature's pulse with joy of Spring
would quicken
No more ; a land accurst.
Gray salt-bush grimmer made the desolation,
Like mocking immortelles
Strewn on the graveyard of a perished
nation
Whose name no record tells.
No faintest sign of distant water glimmered
The aching eye to bless ;
The far horizon like a sword's edge shimmered,
Keen, gleaming, pitiless.
And all the long day through the hot air
quivered
Beneath a burning sky,
In dazzling dance of heat that flashed and
shivered :
It seemed as if hard by
The borders of this region, evil-favored,
Life ended, Death began :
But no ; upon the plain a shadow wavered—
The shadow of a man.
What man was this by Fate or Folly driven
To cross the dreadful plain ?
A pilgrim poor? or Ishmael unforgiven ?
The man was Andy Blane.
A stark old sinner, and a stout, as ever
Blue swag had carried through
That grim, wild land men name the Never-
N'ever,
Beyond the far Barcoo.
His strength was failing now, but his unfailing
Strong spirit still upbore
And drove him on with courage yet unquailing,
In spite of weakness sore.
When, lo ! beside a clamp of salt-bush lying,
AH suddenly he found
A stranger, who before his eyes seemed dying
Of thirst, without a sound.
Straightway beside that stranger on the
sandy
Salt plain—a death-bed sad—
Down kneeling, " Drink this water, mate '"
Said Andy—
It was the last he had.
Behold a miracle ! for when that Other
Had drunk, he rose and cried,
" Let us pass on !' As brother might with
brother
So went they, side by side ;
Until the fierce sun, like an eyeball bloody
Eclipsed in death, was seen
No more, and in the spacious West, still
ruddy,
A star shone out serene.
As one, then, whom some memory beguiling
May gladden, yea, and grieve.
The stranger, pointing up, said, sadly smiling,
" The Star of Christmas Eve !"
Andy replied not. Unto him the sky was
All reeling stars ; his breath
Came thick and fast; and life an empty lie
was
True in one thing only—Death.
Beneath the moonlight, with the weird, wan
glitter
Of salt-bush all around,
He lay ; but by his side in that dark, bitter,
Last hour, a friend he found.
" Thank God !" he said. " He's acted
more than square, mate,
By me in this—and I'm.
A rip He must have known I was—well,
there, mate—
A white man all the time.
To-morrow's Christmas day. God knows
where I'll be
By then—I don't; but you
Away from this Death's hole should many a
mile be,
At Blake's, on the Barcoo.
" You take this cheque there—they will cash
it, sonny—
It meant my Christmas spree—
And do just what you like best with the
money,
In memory of me."'
The stranger, smiling, with a little leaven
Of irony, said, " Yea,
But there it shall not be. With me in heaven
You'll spend your Christmas day."
Then that grey heathen, that old back-block
stager,
Half-jestingly replied,
And laughed—and laughed again—" Mate,
it's a wager !"
And, grimly laughing, died.
o o o
St. Peter stood at the Celestial Portal,
Gazing down gulfs of air,
When Andy Blane, no longer now a mortal,
Appeared before him there.
" What seek'st thou here ."' the saint in tone
ironic
Said, " Surely the wrong gate
This is fur thee." Andy replied, laconic,
" I want to find my mate. '
The gates flew wide. The glory unbeholden
Of mortal eyes was there.
He gazed—this trembling sinner—at the
golden
Thrones, terrible and fair,
And shuddered. Then down through the
living splendor
Came One unto the gate
Who said, with outspread hands, in accents
tender:
" Andy ! I am your mate !''
SELECTED POETRY, (1902, November 7).The Port Augusta Dispatch, Newcastle and Flinders Chronicle (SA : 1885 - 1916), p. 1. Retrieved
Portrait of Harold Grey (left) and Victor Daley, circa 1880-1895 Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-146669281 , courtesy National Library of Australia
THE BARDS WHO LIVED AT MANLY
The camp of high-class spielers,
Who sneered in summer dress,
And doo-dah dilettante,
And scornful "venuses"--
House agents, and storekeepers,
All eager they to "bleed"--
The bards who tackled Manly,
Were plucky bards indeed!
With shops that feared to trust them,
And pubs that looked askance;
And prigs who read their verses,
But gave them not a glance;--
When all were vain and selfish,
And editors were hard--
The bard that stuck to Manly
Was sure a mighty bard.
What mattered floors were barren,
And windows curtainless,
And our life seemed to others
But blackguard recklessness?
We wore our clothes for comfort,
We earned our bread alway,
And beer and good tobacco
Came somehow every day.
Came kindred souls to Manly--
Outsiders that we knew,
And with them scribes and artists,
And low comedians too;
And sometimes bright girl writers--
Called "Tommy", "Jack", or "Pat"--
(Though each one had a sweetheart
The rest knew nought of that).
'Twas not the paltry village
We honoured unaware,
Or welcome warm, or friendship,
Or "tone" that took us there;
We longed to sing for mankind,
Where heaven's breath was free
We only sought the grandeur
Of sea-cliff, sands and sea.
And we were glad at Manly,
All unaware of "swells",
Of doctors and of nurses,
And private hospitals;
With little fear of bailiffs,
And great contempt for greed--
The bards who lived at Manly,
They were a healthy breed.
Oh! moonlit nights at Manly,
When all the world was fair!
In shirts and turned-up trousers
We larked like big boys there.
Oh! glorious autumn mornings--
The gold and green and blue--
We "stripped" as well as any,
And swam as strongly too.
The artist had a missus,
Who rather loved the wretch,
And so for days together
He'd stay at home and sketch.
And then--I fear 'twas only
When things were getting tight--
The bards would shun each other,
And hump themselves--and write.
When bailiffs came to Manly
They'd find no "sticks" to take,
We'd welcome them as brothers--
Their grimy hands we'd shake;
We'd send for beer in billies--
And straightway send for more--
And bailiff nights in Manly
Were merry nights of yore.
There are some things that landlords
And law can't do at all:
They could not take the pictures
We painted on the wall;
They could not take the table--
The table was a door;
They could not take the bedsteads--
The beds were on the floor.
The door of some old stable--
We'd borrowed for a drink--
A page of rhymes and sketches,
And stained with beer and ink;
A dead hand drew the portraits--
And, say, should I be shamed,
To seek it out in Manly
And get the old door framed?
They left the masterpieces
The artist dreamed of long;
They could not take the gardens
From Victor Daley's song;
They left his summer islands
And fairy ships at sea,
They could not take my mountains
And western plains from me.
One bailiff was our brother,
No better and no worse--
And, oh! the yarns he told us
To put in prose and verse,
And sorry we to lose him,
And sorry he to go--
(Oh! skeletons of Pott's Point,
How many things we know)!
The very prince of laughter,
With brains and sympathy;
And with us on the last night
He spent his bailiff's fee.
He banished Durkin's gruffness,
He set my soul afloat,
And drew till day on Daley's
Bright store of anecdote.
He said he'd stick to business--
Though he could well be free--
If but to save poor devils
From harder "bums" than he,
Now artist, bard and bailiff
Have left this vale of sin--
I trust, if they reach Heaven,
They'll take that bailiff in.
The bards that lived in Manly
Have vanished one and one;
But do not think in Manly
Bohemian days are done.
They bled me white in Manly
When rich and tempest-tossed--
I'll leave some bills in Manly
To pay for what I lost.
They'd grab and grind in Manly,
Then slander, sneer, and flout.
The shocked of moral Manly!
They starved my brothers out.
The miserable village,
Set in a scene so fair,
Were honester and cleaner
If some of us were there!
But one went with December--
These last lines seem to-night
Like some song I remember,
And not a song I write.
With vision strangely clearer
My old chums seem to be,
In death and absence, nearer
Than e'er they were to me.
Alone, and still not lonely--
When tears will not be shed--
I wish that I could only
Believe that they were dead.
With hardly curbed emotion,
I can't but think, somehow,
In Manly by the ocean
They're waiting for me now.
Henry Lawson
From For Australia (1913) and:
THE BARDS WHO LIVED AT MANLY. (1906, February 17). The Australian Star (Sydney, NSW : 1887 - 1909), p. 6 (LATE SPORTS). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229653964
Manly, looking north circa 1888, Henry King photo - courtesy State library of Victoria.
To Victor Daley
I thought that silence would be best,
But I a call have heard,
And, Victor, after all the rest,
I well might say a word:
The day and work is nearly done,
And ours the victory,
And we are resting, one by one,
In graveyards by the sea.
But then you talked of other nights,
When, gay from dusk to dawn,
You wasted hours with other lights
That went where you have gone.
You spoke not of the fair and "fast",
But of the pure and true —
"Sweet ugly women of the past"
Who stood so well by you.
You made a jest on that last night,
I met it with a laugh:
You wondered which of us should write
The other's epitaph.
We filled the glasses to the brim —
"The land's own wine" you know —
And solemnly we drank to him
Who should be first to go.
No ribald jest; we were but two —
The royst'ring days were past —
And in our heart of hearts we knew,
That one was going fast.
We both knew who should win the race —
Were rest or fame the prize —
As with a quaint smile on your face
You looked into my eyes.
You talked about old struggles brave,
But in a saddened tone —
The swindles editors forgave
For laughter's sake alone.
You talked of humorous distress,
And bailiffs that you knew,
But with a touch of bitterness
I'd never seen in you.
No need for tears or quick-caught breath —
You sleep not in the sand —
No need for ranting song of death,
With the death drink in our hand.
No need for vain invective hurled
At "cruel destiny",
Though you seem dead to all the world
You are not dead to me.
I see you walk into the room —
We aye remember how —
And, looking back into the gloom,
You'll smile about it now.
'Twas Victor's entry, solemn style —
With verse or paragraph:
Though we so often saw your smile
How many heard you laugh?
They dare to write about the man
That they have never seen:
The blustering false Bohemian
That you have never been;
Some with the false note in their voice,
And with the false tear shed,
Who in their secret heart rejoice
For one more rival — dead.
They miss the poems, real and true,
Where your heart's blood was shed.
And rave of reckless things that you
Threw out for bitter bread.
They "weep" and "worship" while you "rest",
They drivel and they dote —
But, Victor, we remember best
The things we never wrote.
The things that lie between us two,
The things I'll never tell.
A fool, I stripped my soul, but you —
You wore your mask too well
(How strangely human all men be,
Though each one plays a part).
You only dropped it once for me,
But then I saw your heart.
A souls'-match, such as one might strike
With or without intent
(How strangely all men are alike —
With masks so different).
No need to drop the mask again,
On that last night, I know —
It chanced when we were sober men,
Some seven years ago.
They slander you, fresh in the sand,
They slander me alive;
But, when their foul souls flee the land,
Our spirits shall arrive.
In slime and envy let them rave,
And let the worst be said:
"A drunkard at a drunkard's grave,"
"A brilliant drunkard dead."
Because we would not crawl to them,
Their hands we would not shake,
Because their greed we would condemn,
Their bribes we would not take:
Because unto the fair and true
Our hearts and songs we gave —
But I forgot them when I threw
My white flower on your grave.
So let us turn, and with a smile
Let those poor creatures pass
While we, the few who wait awhile,
Drink to an empty glass.
We'll live as in the days gone by,
To no god shall we bow —
Though, Victor, there are times when I
Feel jealous of you now.
But I'll have done with solemn songs,
Save for my country's sake;
It is not meet, for all the wrongs,
That any heart should break.
So many need to weep and smile,
Though all the rest should frown,
That I'd take your burden up awhile
Where you have laid it down.
Henry Lawson, 1906
VICTOR J. DALEY.
(For the 'Freeman.')
Across the sweep of phantom spheres,
Beyond the glimpse of farthest star,
Out to the home of Nature's peers,
His radiant soul is speeding far. ;
Speed on, bright soul, spread wide your
gleams,
O'er- region's wrapped in endless night, ;
And light the way to Land of Dreams,
The poet's quest— the Land of Light!
While we — 'bereft of one who dared
In dazzling line to trace the path
To worlds unseen, and with us shared
His vision of life's aftermath —
Too sad for tears, too wrought for sighs,
And spellbound by the souls swift flight,
Are envious of the Paradise
Of Victor's dream — the Land of Light.
The hand that ever kindly gripped
The hand of' friend, and traced with pen
The priceless page of manuscript,
Is vanished from the reach of men.
The heart of gold, the jewelled brain,
The voice that echoed fancies bright,
We seek, and know we seek in vain,
Without his sphere — the, Land, of Light.
How poor are we in this great loss!
Our- little world has quit its best,
And holds but heavy, uncared dross,
And nights of 'gloom and days unblest.
Mean, too, are we to wish him here
To cheer. us. through our mortal plight,
When he escapes the 'lot austere'
To gain' the goal— the Land of Light.
But rich are we in that we hold
The deathless volume of his mind,
Tine diamond' thought and word of gold,
As legacy to all mankind.
And joy is ours, for Victor shines
Forever in his realm by right,
Where nought his noble. soul confines
Bohemia free. — the Land of Light. '
WILLIAM BEDE MELVILLE.
Manly, December 30, 1905. VICTOR J. DALEY. (1906, January 6).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 13. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119940280
Ocean beach, Manley [i.e. Manly], ca. 1885 - Image nla.obj-144927039-1, courtesy National Library of Australia
More Manly, Mosman and Middle Harbour inspired Daley songs?
A VISION SPLENDID
by Victor Daley
Half waking and half dreaming,
While starry lamps hung low
I saw a vision splendid
Upon the darkness glow.
The Capital Australian,
With waving banners plumed --
A shining flower of marble --
Magnificently bloomed.
Beside a snow-fed river
'Twas built in fashion rare --
Upon a lofty mountain,
All in a valley fair.
The stately ships were sailing,
Like brides with flowing trains,
To seek its secret harbor
Amidst Australian plains.
And all around it flourished
Luxuriantly free,
The giant gum and mangrove,
The crimson desert-pea.
And I beheld a building
That made a stately show --
The National Australian
Head Poetry Bureau.
I gazed upon that Building
With trembling joy aghast;
The long-felt want of ages
Was filled (I thought) at last.
No more the Native Poet
Need wildly beat his head
For lofty lyric measures
To buy him beer and bed.
Now he would lodge right nobly
And sleep serene, secure,
All in a chamber filled with
Adhesive furniture.
For never foot of Bailiff
Should pass his threshold o'er,
And never knock of landlord
Sound direful on his door.
The State should also aid him
To build his lofty rhyme
On lordly eggs-and-bacon,
And sausages sublime.
And he should drink no longer
Cheap beer at common bar,
But royal wine of Wunghnu
At two-and-nine the jar.
It was a vision splendid,
And brighter still did grow
When I was made the Chief of
The Poetry Bureau.
They clad me all in purple,
They hung me with festoons,
My singing-robes were spangled
With aluminium moons.
And, as a sign of genius
Above the common kind,
A wreath of gilded laurel
Around my hat they twined.
They also gave me power to
The grain sift from the chaff,
And choose at my large pleasure
My own poetic staff.
Then straightaway I appointed
To chant by day and night,
The brilliant young Australian
Who sang "The Land of Light."
I also gave in fashion
Hilariously free,
The Girl and Horse Department
In charge of Ogilvie.
And on the roof-ridge Brady
Sang salt-junk chanties great
To cheer the stout sea-lawyers
Who sail the Ship of State.
And tender-hearted Lawson
Sang everybody's wrongs;
And Brennan, in the basement,
Crooned weird, symbolic songs.
And on the throne beside me,
Above the common din,
He sang his Songs of Beauty,
My friend, the poet Quinn.
Our own Australian artists
Made beautiful its halls --
The mighty steeds of Mahony
Pranced proudly on the walls.
Tom Roberts, he was there, too,
With painted portraits fine
Of men of light and leading --
Me, and some friends of mine.
And Souter's Leering Lady,
'Neath hat and over fan,
With Souter's cat was ogling
His check-clothed gentleman.
And Fischer, Ashton, Lister,
With beetling genius rife --
Pardieu! I was their Patron,
And set them up for life.
And from each dusky corner,
In petrified new birth,
Glared busts of Me and Barton,
By Nelson Illingworth.
And nine fair Muses dwelt there,
With board and lodging free;
Six by the States were chosen,
And I selected three.
And there we turned out blithely
Australian poems sound,
To sell in lengths like carpet,
And also by the pound.
For Paddy Quinn, the Statesman,
Had made a law which said
That native authors only
On pain of death be read.
O, brother bards, I grieve that
Good dreams do not come true;
You see how very nobly
I would have done to you!
But, ah! the vision vanished,
And took away in tow
The National Australian
Head Poetry Bureau.
First published in The Bulletin, 1 September 1904, p36
OMARISM
by Victor Daley
With pen in hand and pipe in mouth,
And claret iced to quench my drouth,
I sit upon my balcony
That overlooks the sparkling sea,
Serenly gay, and cool, and bland --
With pipe in mouth and pen in hand.
This life I think is beautiful,
When at the jug I take a pull.
The harbor shines like azure silk;
The claret tastes like mother's milk;
Then to the pipe I turn again -
And then I trifle with the pen.
The red-faced neighbors townward go;
The air is in a furnace glow.
I watch them scorching as they pass,
Like flies beneath a burning glass --
Each clutching at the red-hot hour
For coin; their folly turns me sour.
The Business Man may fret and sweat
In his black coat, for etiquette,
And grow in shop and office old,
And gather wrinkles with his gold --
I sit in shirt-sleeves cool and bland,
With pipe in mouth and pen in hand.
The white clouds -- idle they as I --
Like dreaming gods, at leisure lie
Upon the hill-crests. Smoke upcurls
From chimneys lazily, and girls
Below me, with bare, brown arms fine,
Are pegging linen on a line.
The great ships, from the world outside,
Steam slowly in with stately pride,
Their giant screws now gently spin;
'Tis good to watch them gliding in
From East, and West, and North, and South,
With jug in hand and pipe in mouth.
These visions fill me with content,
And I remember not the rent.
When with cool breezes comes the night
It will be time enough to write.
Then you shall see me start the band --
With pipe in mouth and pen in hand.
"Creeve Roe"
First published in The Bulletin, 9 November 1911, p3
Victor Daley Timeline
Mr. Victor J. Daley.
A new poet is, undoubtedly, amongst us, in Mr. Victor J. Daley, and, although he is an Irishman by birth and education, his muse has developed in Australia, and it may be supposed that he will take his place among the " Australian poets " like Stephens and Gordon. A Brisbane lecturer has been comparing Mr. Daley to Persian poets of the classical age. Some still think that the comparison is violent and far-fetched, and most people trill be unable to make the comparison for themselves. However, Mr. Daley trill bear judgment upon his own merits by British people who understand the genius of their own language, and appreciate the development of the poetic faculty in the imaginative Celt and the philosophic Saxon.. Mr. Daley can afford to stand his trial in Melbourne or Brisbane, without having the venue changed to Astrabad or Teheran.
Mr. Daley was born in 1858 at Navan, within two miles of the City of Armagh, in the county of that name, and North of Ireland. Armagh city is celebrated as the place where St. Patrick erected the Primatial See of Ireland, and to the present day the Catholic Archbishop of the See is called "Primate of All Ireland," while the prelate of Dublin takes the title of "Primate of Ireland." These titles were settled many centuries ago, by the Sovereign Pontiff as the final solution of a difficulty between Dublin and Armagh respecting the Primacy of Ireland. St. Patrick was the first Bishop of Armagh, about the year 444. For the first time in the history of this ancient See, a Roman Cardinal (Logue) now fill its primatial chair.
Adjoining Mr. Daley's birthplace is the townland of Creeve Roe (Irish for Red Branch), which was the headquarters of the famous Red Branch Knights alluded to in Moore's melody :- .
Let Erin remember the days of old,
When her kings, with, standard of green unfurled,
Led the Red Branch Knights to danger.
Navan and its neighbourhood is rich in most interesting antiquities. In a garden adjoining the residence of Mr. Daley's parents, an ancient crown or fillet was once dug up, and young Daley was present on another occasion when a bishop's bogoak crozier, with beautiful interlaced gold-work in the crook, was turned up by the plough in a field near his grandfather's house. These interesting specimens of early Irish art are now shown in Irish museums. " Navan Ring" is an ancient rath or castle, in the form of a beehive, surrounded by a foss, and which was used in bygone ages as a residence by Conor MacNessa, the Agammenon of the Irish Iliad -The Children of Usna. There are no windows to this "Irishman's Castle." Entrance was obtained by an aperture which, centuries ago, was built in, and Master Daley, on one occasion, was confined to his bed for a week as the result of an unsuccessful attempt to re-open this passage with blasting powder! These raths or castles were not used to such treatment as young Daley bestowed upon "Navan Ring" for Irish warfare in the time of Brian Boru, and for centuries before, was conducted in the open, and victories were obtained by fair fight or strategy.
Mr. Daley was educated at the school of the Christian Brothers in Armagh. At the same time, by-the-bye, Mr. W. H. Irvine, the present member of the Victorian Assembly for Lowan, was a pupil at the Royal School in the same town. Mr. Daley's father died when the son was only six years old, and his mother re-married. Young Daley's mother and step-father then removed, when the boy was 10 years old, to Devonport, in Devonshire, England, where, in 1840, the great fire took place in the dock-yard, whereby the Talavara of 74 guns, the Imogene frigate of 28 guns, and an immense quantity of stores were destroyed. On that occasion, the relics and figure-heads of the favourite ships of Boscawen, Rodney, Duncan and other naval heroes, which were preserved in a Naval Museum, were also burnt; the total loss being estimated at £200,000.
Young Daley went to the Catholic school at Devonport, which was first under the supervision of a Rev. Mr. Hobson, who had formerly been an Anglican clergyman. Father Hobson was a man of private fortune, who spent nearly all his means upon the Catholic Church and schools of Devonport, where his congregation was small and not rich. He was succeeded, in young Daley's time, by a Father Verdon, also a convert to Catholicism, and a man of large private means, which he, like Father Hobson, devoted to religion, education and charity. Master Daley remained at Devonport twelve months, at the end of which time he was sent back to Navan to become the charge of his maternal grandfather and grandmother.
Master Daley returned to the Christian Brothers School at Armagh, and continued a pupil of the school for the next three years. In these days' young Daley was a frequent visitor to "Navan Ring." It was popularly believed that this rath was a home of the fairies, and often, when Daley and some young companions went there rabbitting with their greyhounds, Victor would put his ear to the ground to hear the fairies' music below !
For, it was said that if one heard the music, it would remain with one for life!
Victor Daley frequently heard (in fancy) this subterranean harmony, and, no doubt, this accounts for the development of the poet in later years ! Be this as it may, the boy showed a love of poetry some time before his departure for England in 1868. When only eight years of age he borrowed Byron's Cain from the Christian Brothers' Library, and deposited it, -with some other books, in a haystack at the back of the family residence for occasional private use. His grandfather disapproved of his reading much at that age, and so little Victor had to indulge his literary tastes by stealth. Some boys would have liked to borrow Cane from school and forget to return it!
One day when little Daley was returning from school-he was now about 12-he made a distinguished acquaintance, whose cicerone to the home of the fairies he became. He and some other boys were having a game of marbles on the road when they were joined by the Primate, Dr. McGattigan, who, at the close of the game, called for a volunteer to show him the rath of "Navan Ring"; young Daley led the tall, stately but kindly Primate to the rath, and pointed out the stone (still bearing the trace of Daley's blasting powder), which, according to The Booh of Armagh, marked the entrance to the ancient castle. From the rath, the Primate was led by little Daley to his home, and introduced to-the boy's grandmother, who was paralysed with awe and delight, at the unexpected advent of such a distinguished visitor.
In 1871, Master Daley returned to Devonport, and in the following year he lost his mother by death, when he was only 14 years of age. His step-father, Mr. Moore, married again. Master Daley continued at school in England till 1875. He passed an examination for a junior clerkship in the service of the South Devon, now the Great Western, Railway Company, and obtained an appointment from the company. The scene of his duties was in Plymouth, to which he, at first went daily from his step-father's home in Devonport, but, after awhile, he took up quarters in the fortified seaport, which in 1588 was the rendezvous of the English Fleet, of 120 sail under Howard and Drake, where Sir Francis played .his- famous game of bowls as the Armada came up the Channel, and whence Drake and his comrades chased the daring Spaniards from British waters. Mr. Daley remained with the South Devon Railway Company for three years, and in 1878 sailed from Plymouth for Sydney, New South Wales, although he had some connections by marriage in South Australia.
Mr. Daley was not long in Sydney before he found himself very "hard up." He determined to take any employment that presented itself, and seeing an advertisement for a gardener in one of the morning papers, he answered it. He was asked to call, and found that the person who wanted a man to take charge of his garden was the Rev. Mr. Stephens, a well-known Anglican clergyman, who kept an academy for boys in Darlinghurst-road, and died a couple of years ago. Mr. Daley got a smattering of gardening from his employer, and successfully concealed his own entire ignorance of horticulture. His sleeping apartment contained 200 or 300 volumes of books, confiscated by Mr. Stephens from his pupils, and Daley spent most of his time among these. He lived an Arcadian life, with an income of £20 a year and "found," for one consecutive week ! During the second week, he was "under notice"! In point of fact, the engagement was a terrible failure. Besides looking after the garden, Mr. Daley had to clean the boys' boots and help the cook! He got on well enough with the flowers, but in trying a new method of drying three plates at a time, he broke a lot of the crockery ware, and he supplied to the table eggs of a rare breed of fowl, many of which contained birds, and were never intended to be eaten. Mr. Stephen sent for Daley at the psychical moment when Daley had asked to see him. Mr. Daley silenced the dominus by tendering his resignation at once and crying quits as to wages. The resignation was accepted, but the wages were paid. Mr. Daley left Sydney, immediately, for Adelaide.
In the South Australian capital Mr. Daley was an attorney's clerk in the office of Messrs. Pope and King, King William-street, for five weeks, and then corresponding clerk in the counting-house of Messrs. Harris, Scarfe and Company, in Gawler-place, for nearly a year.
He had, by this time, saved a little money, and he and another determined to go to Japan, via Melbourne, and try their luck under the rule of the Mikado. On reaching Melbourne they changed their minds and agreed to go to Fiji instead of Japan. Just then a big race-meeting was on in Melbourne, and Mr. Daley and his companion went to the races at Flemington one day. When they returned in the evening, they decided that they must remain in Melbourne. The astute reader will, probably, guess why Daley and his chum then parted company.
The former fell in with a dealer in second-hand books, who did business in Carlton, and with whom he went to lodge. He knew the value of books, and was of good service to the dealer, who was ultimately instrumental in bringing out Mr. Daley as a writer. One morning Mr. Crowther drew Daley's attention to a new local paper having made its appearance in Carlton-The Advertiser, of which Mr. John Whitelaw was the proprietor. Races were coming on, and Mr. Daley, appeared one morning at daylight out at Flemington in the character of a tout-a turf prophet!-although, as he afterwards declared, he knew the difference between a cow and a horse only by one having horns and the other none!However, he fancied he spotted a winner! The horse was a very long one, and it occurred to Daley that the horse's mere length would win him the race if he got anything like fair play. A few such horses, put one after another, would go round the course !
Daley returned to town, and wrote an article on the horses entered for the chief events at the races, which was accepted and published. This was Victor Daley's debut as a journalist and author ! He subsequently saw Mr. Whitelaw at the office in Elgin street, and became regularly attached to the Advertiser. After a few months, he was joined on the staff by Mr. Tom Power and his dog, "Mister." Mr. Power is now one of the chief sporting writers on the Sydney Morning Herald. Of "Mister's" subsequent movements we know nothing. Daley remained with the Carlton Advertiser about a year.
He was next employed in the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880-1, where he had charge of some of the exhibits for the representative of some British and American manufacturers; but he was a shocking poor salesman, and this engagement lasted only six weeks. Daley had a friend, one Larry Blank, who had been "knocking about" the goldfields of Australia for 20 years, and he told Victor that whenever he saw “a good thing " he would wire to him. Just when Daley was about to start for Temora which was then in full swing-with Edwin Asterisk; a violinist and piano tuner, he received a brief wire from Blank telling him to come on to Queanbeyan.
The pair went by rail to Seymour, and walked to Albury where Asterisk received a remittance of £1-the proceeds of the sale of his fiddle. While camping a little beyond Albury, they picked up an ex-Captain of Lancers, who had been discharged from the Victorian Civil Service on Black Wednesday,' and was now on his way to seek work at Yanko, where he had heard there was a plague of burrs! He changed his mind, however, and joined company with Daley and his friend and the three journeyed through Wagga, across the Murrumbidgee, by Tarcutta and Adelong to Tumut, meeting with numerous adventures on the way-some serious, others ludicrous. They were lost in the Tumut Ranges for three days. Weary and famishing, they tried to catch some mountain sheep, but the musician was nearly trampled to death by a horde of the animals. At length Asterisk came upon a faint horse- track, which brought the trio to the banks of the Murrumbidgee. There the Captain swearing at large, laid down to die of hunger and exhaustion. Daley and Asterisk swam the river, and came upon a squatter's station, where they were hospitably received and given an abundance of provisions, with which, they hastened back to the Captain, who became refreshed and strengthened, and was soon able to resume the journey. They parted with the Captain at Yass, where, knowing something about horses, he secured a billet in a stable.
Daley and Asterisk at length reached Queanbeyan, but found that Larry Blank had, while on his way from Cooma in a comatose condition * aimlessly sent the wire to Daley in passing through the town! Daley, however, got employment in a tannery at 15s. a week, with board, lodging and washing. His duties were to drag skins or "pelts" across a yard, throw them into a pit and trample on them. Before he entered upon his office, however, he got an offer from the editor of the local paper - the Times-of literary work, at precisely the same remuneration as he was offered by the tanner; and as Daley preferred jumping on borough councillors and police court "beaks," in the columns of the local press, to trampling upon pelts in a tan-pit, he accepted the editor's offer. Asterisk was made bandmaster of the local band.
Victor Daley remained five months at the Times office, in the latter half of 1881, he then went on to Sydney, and joined the staff of Punch,which was edited at that time by Mr. Berdoe. Some time in 1882 he became attached to the staff of the Bulletin when Mr. W. H. Traill and Mr. J. F. Archibald were the editors and Mr. "Jack" Haynes was the manager. Mr. Daley stayed at the Bulletin office till 1885. In the meantime Messrs. Haynes and Archibald were incarcerated for a lengthened period in Darlinghurst gaol for non-payment of damages and costs in connection with the celebrated "Clontarf libel," and Mr. Daley frequently visited his chiefs in durance vile.
In 1886 Mr. Daley returned to Melbourne, and has since been a "freelance" in Australian literature, where no name is more familiar than his. He is a constant and valued contributor to numerous Australian publications scattered up and down the Australian colonies. He is about to publish his collected poems in volume form. In person, Mr. Daley is of medium height and build, youthful appearance, though he wears a full brown beard, and speaks with a slight North of Ireland accent. He is a capital story-teller, and a typical Bohemian. Mr. Daley is married, and has a small young family.
This is hardly the place to enter upon a detailed criticism of Mr. Daley's work as a poet. Let him himself. Here are a few specimens of his varying styles:
The following is a piece giving the spirit of what the Germans call Wanderjahre-the primitive nomadic instinct which is in the blood of all men, but suppressed by civilisation in the great majority, and which is quickened in the season of spring.
A Song of ROVING.
"When the sap runs up the tree,
And the wine runs o'er the wall,
When the blossom draws the be»,
From the forest comes a call
Wild and clear, and sweet and strange,
Many-toned, and murmuring
Like the river in the range
'Tis the joyous voice of Spring!
O arise, arise light-hearted !
Take pilgrim staff In hand
For it is the time for roving
Through the green and pleasant land.
On the boles of grey old trees,
Lo, the flying sunbeams play
Mystic, Boundless melodies !
A fantastic march and gay
But the young leaves hear them-hark
How they rustle ev'ry one !
And the sop beneath the hark,
Laughing, leaps to meet the sun !
Then arise, arise and follow,
The music goes before.
For it is the time for roving
Though we should return no more.
O the world is wondrous fair
When th« tide of life's at flood,
There is magic in the air,
There is music in the blood,
And a glamour draws us on
To the Distance, rainbow-spanned,
And the road we tread upon
Is the road to Fairyland.
So arise, arise companions,
As quickly as ye may I
For it is the time for roving
O'er the hills and far away.
Lo, the elders hear the sweet
Voice, and know the wondrous song,
And their ancient pulses beat
To a tune forgotten long,
And they talk in whispers low,
With a smile and with a sigh,
Of the years of long ago,
And the roving days gone by.
Then arise, arise, dear comrades,
While brightly shines the bun,
For we'll go no more *-roving
When the roving days are done.
Mr. Daley has written a good deal of elegiac verse. From an elegy, entitled "Love Laurel," on the poet Kendall, published in the Sydney Freeman's Journal (in which Kendall's own best poems appeared) the concluding stanzas are quoted :
Let be; lie still: thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest, in earth's secret bosom,
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden kingflower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But linply there shall come in days to be .
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as a sword from its sheath,
Song shall spring forth, where now, O silent Master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea
I lay this laurel wreath
Mr. Daley has produced much love-poetry, of course. Every singer "worth his salt" must write, at least, a barrow-load of this in his time ! Most of Mr. Daley's poems of this description are too long for quotation now...
Here is an example of poetry of a devotional character:
SUNRISE.
Up rose the sun upon a chill grey morn,
And down the dim lands rolled
His serried rays upon the ripening corn
Bed gold on the pale gold.
Bright-faced was he as victor in the breach
Of some proud city won,
Who plants on high, beyond the foeman's reach,
His golden gonfalon.
The pale moon, gazing at that wondrous sight
As at the light of grace
A dying saint-went down into the night'
With glory on her face.
So, when the last sad hour has come for me,
Ere the dim path be trod
May I while darkness close round me see
The glory of my God.
A few samples of epigrammatic verse
LOVE'S LOGIC.
Corinna calls me heartless. Thus, you see.
Logic in love has little part.
How can I otherwise than heartless be
Seeing Corinna has my heart
THE ASCETIC.
The narrow thorny path he trod : .
"Enter into my joy," said God.
The pale ascetic shook his head,
" I've no heart left for joy," he said.
Mr. Daley has written a number of songs, one of which, "The Dell of Dreams," was set to music by Mr. John Delaney (now organist of St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney) and published. Another, " If I were young as you Sixteen," was set to music by that eminent composer, the late Charles Packer, but owing to his illness and subsequent death was never published. * .
He has written an abundance of humorous verse, but fair examples of this style are too long for quotation. All Mr. Daley's distinctively Australian poems, such as " His Mate," " The Golden Bullet," " The Old Wife and the New," " Bryan Ryan's Ride," and " Larry," are of considerable length.
He has published portions of a poem, the scene of which is laid near the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales. "Narora" is to be the title of this poem, which will, with a few others, make a second volume if the first volume about to be published is successful. "Narora" is entirely Australian in colour.
We conclude with a specimen of Mr. Daley's muse in the pathetic vein :-:
The Dead Child
All silent is the room,
There is no stir of breath,
Save mine, as in the gloom
I sit alone with Death.
Short life it had, the sweet,
Small babe here lying dead,
With tapers at its feet
And tapers at its head.
Dear little hands, too frail
Their grasp on life to hold;
Dear little mouth so pale,
So solemn, and so cold;
Small feet that nevermore
About the house shall run;
Thy little life is o'er!
Thy little journey done!
Sweet infant, dead too soon,
Thou shalt no more behold
The face of sun or moon,
Or starlight clear and cold;
Nor know, where thou art gone,
The mournfulness and mirth
We know who dwell upon
This sad, glad, mad, old earth.
The foolish hopes and fond
That cheat us to the last
Thou shalt not feel; beyond
All these things thou hast passed.
The struggles that upraise
The soul by slow degrees
To God, through weary days,
Thou hast no part in these.
And at thy childish play
Shall we, O little one,
No more behold thee? Nay,
No more beneath the sun.
Death's sword may well be bared
'Gainst those grown old in strife,
But, ah! it might have spared
Thy little unlived life.
Why talk as in despair?
Just God, whose rod I kiss,
Did not make thee so fair
To end thy life at this.
There is some pleasant shore,
Far from His Heaven of Pride,
Where those strong souls who bore
His Cross in bliss abide.
Some place where feeble things,
For Life's long war too weak,
Young birds with unfledged wings,
Buds nipped by storm-winds bleak,
Young lambs left all forlorn
Beneath a bitter sky,
Meek souls to sorrow born,
Find refuge when they die.
There day is one long dawn,
And from the cups of flowers
Light dew-filled clouds updrawn
Rain soft and perfumed showers.
Child Jesus walketh there
Amidst child-angel bands,
With smiling lips, and fair
White roses in His hands.
I kiss thee on the brow,
I kiss thee on the eyes,
Farewell! Thy home is now
The Children's Paradise.
* Plain "drunk" seems too brutally candid, I fancy;
Anecdotal Photograph. (1895, February 22). Table Talk (Melbourne, Vic. : 1885 - 1939), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145919807
Three Sundowners
By Victor Daley
Imagine yourself twenty years of age with all the world before you ! Not the hard practical world as you know it now, but a world fall of wonder, and enchantments, and benevolent magicians, ready to make your fortune for you with a wave of their wands when you have time to attend to them. Then picture yourself as a young man who has already achieved a high position in life as a member of the Glorious Fourth Estate — that Power at whose frown monarchs tremble, and Governments grovel in the dust. Would you not feel that life was worth living, and that what elderly people said about its hollowness was a senile calumny ?
Of course you would. Well, I was that sort of young man in the year — but we need not trouble about dates. I was then editor, leader-writer, art critic, musical and dramatic critic, police court reporter, Sunday sermon reporter, fashion reporter, sporting editor, and several other things in connection with a weekly paper which circulated all over a Melbourne suburb, and had readers even as far away as Bacchus Marsh.These latter were relatives of the proprietor, and, of course, deadheads, but still they were readers. And what they read, week by week, was what I had written. That was a fine thing to know. Fancy a multitude of people, like the sands of the sea for number — four hundred at least — being educated by one little man, not very long from school! It was an intoxicating thought. And it is but bare justice to myself to say that I gave them of my best. I did not insult their intelligence by writing leading articles dealing with petty local questions or parochial politics, but took them to a higher level and instructed their minds upon matters of world-wide interest. Bismarck was the Colossus of Europe in those days, but his knees of iron must have knocked together more than once when he read what I wrote about him in the Carlton Chronicle. It was a great time. I have never since had such a grand opportunity to deal with European politics.
Larry Spruhan came into the office one day, and gazed at me silently for a moment. He was a rather handsome man with a cast in one eye, which gave him the drollest and wickedest expression you ever saw. He used to look at you with this eye, from under the brim of his slouch hat, until he could make you do almost what he liked. As this chiefly consisted in asking you to drink, perhaps the task was not so difficult as it might seem. 'What are you writing about?' he said on this occasion. ' The Eastern question,' I answered with dignity. He laughed uproariously. Then, when he had finished, he spat into the waste-paper basket, kicked the office-cat from under the table, and remarked, ' It's time for you to get out of this. You think you're growing to be a fine writer, and a philosopher and all that. But you're' not. You're a young ass, and if you keep on as you're doing, you'll be an old ass, which is a much worse thing. Better come away with me. I'm going out prospecting. ' Prospecting for what ? ' I sneered, for I was sore over what be had said. 'Prospecting for gold,' he replied; 'Did you think I was going out prospecting for blanky mushrooms?' I told him somewhat stiffly that I could not see my way to join him at such short notice. Then he made me promise that if I received a telegram from him, stating that he had struck gold, I would leave everything and make my way to him. ''You won't have to battle,' he remarked cheerfully. 'I'll send you money enough for your fare, even if it's to Port Darwin.'
With that understanding we parted.
* * *
Weeks passed by, but I heard nothing from Spruhan. Meanwhile, Caddy, the musician, and I had come to the conclusion that Melbourne was no place for us to dwell in. He could only make an odd half-sovereign now and then by playing at parties and the like, and a coolness had arisen between me and the proprietor of the paper, because some of his subscribers had told him that he should devote more attention to local affairs, and give Bismarck a rest for a while. Things were at this pass when I received a welcome wire from Spruhan. It came from Queanbeyan and ran thus : — 'Struck it rich. Come along at once.' But he had sent no money, and it was a far cry to Queanbeyan. Moreover, neither Caddy nor I had any money of our own to boast about. We managed to raise a little, however — Caddy sold his fiddle, and I sold the only watch I have ever had in my life — and immediately bought a set of blue blankets, a three-quart billy and two pannikins. Caddy thought of buying a second-hand revolver but I said that I didn't think it would be necessary. The purseless traveller goes singing on his way. Anyhow, the Kellys had Keen caught some time previously.
We intended to take the train as far as Donnybrook and start our tramp from that point. For tramp it had to be. We might have saved money by starting from Melbourne, but we were ashamed to be seen trudging through the streets in open daylight with swags upon our backs. Our fashionable friends might see us, and there would then be a fine, story to tell. It is a pity that the conceit of youth is not a marketable commodity. If it were, what a fine start in life most young men would have !
* * *
A grazier whom we met in the train induced us to go with him as far as Kilmore. He said he lived there and would give us a light job for a day or two and pay us a quid each — to use his own expression. We were delighted, of course. This was luck from the start. It was not until we arrived at Kilmore that we discovered that our generous friend was intoxicated. When we got out at the station he lurched off on his own account. I tapped him on the shoulder. ' Are we to follow you ?' I asked, with an affectation of cheerfulness. He turned around and regarded us with a bloodshot glare. 'If ye foller me — I'll give ye in charge — ye pair of blanky spielers, ' he said. 'But you asked us to come here, and it's night now, and we must stay somewhere. Where are we to go ?' ' Go to h ___ ,' he replied, huskily, and staggered into the darkness.
Then we recollected that he had been helping himself at intervals from a black bottle during the train journey.
****
We stayed that night at the hotel, and in the morning met an affable local resident who showed us how to make up swags in proper bushman fashion. I had two new suits packed up in mine — a fine black suit, for wearing at funerals, and garden parties, and other special occasions, and a serge suit for ordinary wear.. 'What's this for?' he said, holding up the former at arm's length. ' Well,' I said, ' I thought we might, now and then, be asked to dinner or afternoon tea by a squatter, and I thought it would be well to be prepared.' The man eyed me for a moment — to see whether I was speaking in good faith or not, I suppose. Then he threw his head back and roared with laughter. And, still laughing and holding his sides, he went out of the room. ' I must tell Bill,' he said, 'Bill mustn't miss this for the world.'
Presently he came back with Bill — a tall, saturnine-looking individual with a saddle-coloured complexion and a leather band around his slouched hat. Bill didn't laugh. He merely smiled drily and said, ' I wouldn't worry about the squatters for a while yet, if I was you. And you won't-find any use for that kind of clothes where you're goin' ! Besides you couldn't carry 'em.' He brought a pair of scales and weighed the swag I had proposed to carry. Thirty-two pounds it weighed. ‘But I can carry that much,' I observed. ' Try it day after day, and you'll find out,' he said.
I may remark here that before we came to the end of our journey my swag weighed exactly fourteen pounds. I gave the suit away to these disinterested counsellors. About a year afterwards I met one of them— the man with the dry smile — in Sydney, and he told me with much humour, over a drink, that they had sold it to a local Chinaman and drank the proceeds. At Wodonga I gave away three new white shirts to a travelling tinker in exchange for a Crimean shirt. At Wagga I bartered away a pair of new lace-up boots for a pair of copper-fastened bluchers. I was, in fact, all through the trip like the traveller pursued by wolves who throws out his clothing, piece by piece, to be devoured, and is glad enough to escape with his life. After breakfast we were off on the road to the Lonely and Mysterious Bush. I may say that while we were in Victoria we rarely ventured more than a mile away from the railway line. And we actually believed that we were in the bush!
****
It was a pleasant delusion, all the same. The trees obsessed me. I had seen gum trees before, but never so many at a time. I did not like them at first. They gave me an eerie kind of impression, which can hardly be described If it were possible to imagine that the Vegetable Kingdom had a spiritual code of its own (and why not, for that matter?), I could have easily believed that these grey-green apparitions were spectres of green trees that had been damned for some breach of the Vegetable Commandments. But I grew to know them
better afterwards, and to discover that they have their own peculiar charm. We camped beside a creek on the other side of Avenel that evening, boiled our shiny billy for the first time, and made bush tea. I have drunk tea in Devonshire with the cream of the county in it, and tea in Ireland with my grandmother's favourite flavouring of black currant buds, and tea a la Russe, with a slice of lemon floating in the cup, and tea au rhum, but none of them could compare with the bush tea I drank that evening out of a pannikin. And afterwards, when we lit our pipes, and yarned beside the burning log — the first burning log is as full of poetry and romance as the first kiss— with the stars above our heads, and the trees keeping guard around us, we were probably as serenely contented as anybody can hope to be in this world.
* * **
We paid our way — that is to say, we bought our own provisions — until we came to Benalla. Then Caddy said that this real sundowning would, have to – begin. 'Not yet,' I said, and produced a pound-note, which I had reserved for emergencies, from the lining of my coat. We went into town; and changed it at a hotel. One drink apiece. It was little for drinking we cared in those fine days. Then we bought tea, and sugar, and flour, and some meat, and camped by the river Caddy used to attend to the cooking of the meat. I made the Johnny cakes. We had good digestions in those days. Anyhow, I was never fastidious with regard to food. Caddy was. He liked his meat cooked nicely, and when he found a shovel-blade in the road one day you would have thought that he had discovered a side of bacon, he made such a song over the affair. He spent an hour that evening in cleaning the shovel-blade with sand.
Make a fine substitute for a frying-pan,' he said. So it did— though being so thick, it was somewhat slow— for three days! Then he threw it away. I was waiting for this to happen, but I asked him what he meant by discarding an old friend in such a contemptuous fashion. ' Weighs seven- pounds,' he replied briefly. I knew that well enough. I had lifted it. But that was one of Caddy's idiosyncrasies. If he ever saw anything lying around loosely, which he thought might come in handy, he would hoist it on his back and hump it along for two or three days, until he got disgusted. Then he would throw it away and march along until he came across some other absurd article, which he imagined might prove serviceable. To make things worse for him he was an inventive genius. I carried my swag in horseshoe fashion, or simply over my shoulder. This was not good enough for Caddy. He said that I was a mere beast of burden who had no brains to use to find a way to make my burden lighter. He had the brains all right, and it would have been a delight to you to see his harness. He made up his swag knapsack fashion. Attached to his belt behind was a little wooden bracket, upon which his swag rested. That took some of the weight from the shoulders. Then he had cross belts, of rope that brought some of the weight to the front. Another attachment passed under his armpits. This he called the 'distributor,' and claimed that it distributed the strain of carrying the swag equally over the different parts of the body. It must have been a good idea, for it always took him at least ten minutes to get himself into harness in the morning, and nearly the same length of time to get out of harness at night, without counting the times we had to stop during the day for readjustment of the apparatus. I have noticed that a great many labour-saving inventions are constructed in this fashion. I respected that harness of Caddy's, but although he earnestly urged its merits upon me I could not see my way to adopt it When a thing is too complicated for your intellect to grasp without strenuous effort it is better to leave that thing alone. Anyhow, I could inspan and outspan in two seconds to Caddy's ten minutes. We boiled our billy on a blacksmith's fire in Barnawartha. Had tea in the forge. ' Do you know where there is an empty house we could camp in ?' ' Over there,' said the blacksmith, indicating the place with a huge grimy oratorical arm. There was a space of dry ground about four feet square in the mansion. The roof that might have sheltered us was gone, all but a patch. We lit a fire on the little oasis. I awoke in the morning and found myself asleep in a pool of water. Caddy was slumbering in another pool. 'This won't do,' I observed, 'we shall be getting rheumatism.' I tore down some dry panelling and started the fire again. Caddy went over to the main street of the city and bought a loaf with our last threepence. It was a gloomy breakfast. We were sodden wet, through and through. 'Plenty of exercise,' said Caddy, after he had harnessed himself. 'Circulate the blood, and keep yourself warm, and it's all right.' From Barnawartha to Indigo Creek you could not see us for steam. At Indigo Creek there was a hotel — the Doma Munci it was called, as a sort of compliment to some Italians who were working in a mine close by. The proprietor was an Irishman. Caddy walked straight into the bar and called for two large rums. They were served. I was paralysed. The landlord looked at us with a dubious eye, that quickly became belligerent. A little girl was playing the piano in a back room. 'That's a fine instrument,' said Caddy, ' but it's out of tune.' The face of the publican cleared immediately. ' So it is,' he said. 'Do you know anything of pianos ?' Caddy showed his tuning key, which he always carried with him. ' Come in,' said the publican. We stayed there two days, living on the fat of the land and drinking everything we liked to call for. Caddy confided to the landlord that he was really Signor Caddi from La Scala, in Milan. 1 was in horrible fear that the miners would come in and give us away, because neither of us could speak more than three or four words of Italian. Sure enough a gang of them came around. 'It's all up,' said Signor Caddi, ' we shall have to slip out through the back door.' ' Not yet,' I said, ' Let me try.'
I had noticed that the leader of the gang was a hairy Savoyard with the eye of a Salvator Rosa brigand. I drew him aside, and told him our story. He was delighted. 'I fix-a that,' he said, Then going in and addressing the landlord. 'Very fine musician that-a. Comes from Palermo— he is Si-cil-ian.' The others looked at him, but he cowed them with his eye. Fortunately there was an old fiddle in the house Caddy played on it for them. And what a time we had— a Carnival— a Saturnalia. They danced the dances they used to dance when they amused Horace on his Sabine farm. Slow graceful dances of the Lido, brigandish corroborees of the Abruzzi, mad Neapolitan tarantellas. Not one man of the lot was drunk and they must have consumed a hogshead of wine. ‘You and your mate can stay a week here, if you like,' said the landlord.
The following Saturday was the payday at the mine. Caddy absorbed himself in his business, He took the piano to pieces. It wasn't a piano anyhow — it was a harmonium. But the landlord didn't seem to know the difference. We were regular attendants at meals! Caddy used to come out of the back room now and then with a board stuck full of brass pins in his hand. One of the pieces at the back of the harmonium. He screwed the pins this way and screwed them that way, and whistled reflectively. The landlord and I were sitting on the verandah smoking Doma Munci cigars, and watching the rain. 'Pretty tough job?' said the landlord. 11 Very tough,' replied Caddy, 'but I can manage it,' On the third morning it was necessary to leave. I wanted to get along. The landlord asked us to stay till the end of the week, but I told him it was not possible. / knew. We bored along through the rain, and Caddy said, after we had turned the corner of the road — ' We'll cut along over this track.' ' But why ?' 'Well, when they touch that harmonium it will fall to bits. I don't know anything about harmoniums.'
* * * .
Then we met Chris, the travelling tinker. He had with him as a sort of acolyte a bilious-faced Swede. When jobs were not plentiful he used to kick the Swede, who told me, in gloomy confidence, that he was a lineal descendant of Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North. All the same, he had to carry the soldering tools, and to attend to the fire under the old tin oil-can, when there was a job to do. ‘Blanky Dutchy, anyhow,' Chris used to say when I would remonstrate with him. The blanky Dutchy pitched the tin and the soldering tools into a creek one night, and was away in the morning with the blue blankets of his employer. Absolutely took them from him while he was asleep, and- we were all asleep. You should have heard Chris swear. Never in my life before had I heard such magnificent blasphemy. But Chris was a philosopher., ' I have a house in Wodonga,' he said. ' Both of yees can stay there for a month if ye like.' It was Chris who swopped with me the Crimean shirt for three white shirts. He put one of the latter on. 'My son,' he said to me, 'occupies the house now. Every time I come up this way we have a blanky fight to see who's goin' to own it for the next year.' We camped that evening in a disused wheelwright's shed. Late at night Chris returned with a black eye. 'Bill owns the house,' he said. Bill was the name of his son.
* ***
It was on the other side of Albury when we were on the way to the Piny Ranges, that we came across the Third Sundowner. Far away on the road in front of us, fifty yards or so, was a man , whose very shadow was ragged. The billy-can he carried— battered, black, grimy, grotesque— looked sinful and shameful in the sunlight. 'Better pass him quickly,' said Caddy. We did so, but when we camped beside a creek, and the billy was boiling, and he came up and spoke affably, what could you do ? Of course, we asked him to join us. Noblesse oblige.
He had been a captain in the 17th Lancers. By name, Bourke. He joined us. Then we had to start sundowning in earnest. We broke away from the ordinary track, and came to a place called, as I discovered afterwards, Brungle Creek. 'Foot of white man.' I said, ' has never trodden here before. You're the biggest man, Bourke; go up to the station and fill the bags.'
I should say that Mrs. Middlemore Matthews, the wife of the musician of that name, had given me an air pillow when I was leaving Melbourne. I cut the partitions, and it made an excellent flour bag.
Bourke could always get flour and meat from a station cook. He. had the grand air which does not brook refusal. Besides he looked as if he were able to work should such a dire necessity arise. * * * And now, having told only a third of my story, I must end.
We arrived in Queanbeyan, and I saw the Postmaster. 'Spruhan ? ' he said, turning over his book. ' Yes, now I remember. He was pretty tight. Jumped off the coach from Cooma, sent away a wire, and then went on to Goulburn.'
No gold mine. I got a billet on the local paper, and I had a chance to take a position in a tannery! Might have been a Mayor by now. Too late to worry, however. THREE SUNDOWNERS (1902, December 20). The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney, NSW : 1900 - 1919), p. 13. Retrieved March from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128800045
Charles Wesley Caddy had five children and a wife who were living in a little cottage in Little Brighton street, Petersham while he was gallivanting with Argles and Daley at Manly. He married Elizabeth Jane Hicks in 1871 in Melbourne. A son of a large family of brothers and sisters, he was classically trained in music and offered a very good education. Prior to pursuing a literary career he worked as a school teacher.
MELBOURNE REVIEW for JANUARY.
We have received from the publishers & copy of the " Melbourne Review " for January. The number opens with an anonymous article on political parties in Victoria. The writer, who is said to be a gentleman of great political experience, whose views are entitled to careful consideration, and who is understood to bo Judge Bocaut, ex Premier of South Australia, tells us that he belongs to one of the most conservative of classes.
…
A further article in this line by Mr. C. W. Caddy begins the discussion of the morals of politics, but readers will probably feel that they will have to wait for a further instalment of the subject before they are able to see exactly what Mr. C. W. Caddy is driving at. The MELBOURNE REVIEW for JANUARY. (1879, January 24). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 7. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13428193
“The morals of politics” is the title of an article by C.Wesley Caddy, which puts in lively way some very well-known but unpleasant facts. The moral, so far, is that the people get what they want, and as there is a demand for time-servers they are supplied. MELBOURNE REVIEW. (1879, January 16). The Ballarat Star (Vic. : 1865 - 1924), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article199347222
Mr. C. W. Caddy, who contributed a paper on the Morals of Politics to the last number of the Melbourne Review, feels somewhat aggrieved at the remarks made in our critical notice of that periodical, to the effect that his paper consists of " an ambitions but futile attempt to imitate Mr. Mallock's New Republic." , In a letter we have received from him he says, "I have: never read or heard of Mr. Mallock, except in a hack number of the Nineteenth Century, where he discusses the question, 'Is Life Worth Living ?' And as I only got hold of that two days ago, and have not yet read ;it through, 1 am unable to say to what , extent my article, written six weeks ago, may be influenced by Mr. Mullock's speculations or style. But I don't think the traces of Mr, Mallock's invention can be very strong. From an abstract of Mr, Mallock's work, given to me by a friend who has read it, I can find no trace of similarity between the Review article and it ; and I have come to the conclusion that the gentleman who wrote the notice for you has either not- read my article," or has not read Mr. Mallock's. If he has read both, perhaps it would not be too much trouble to point out in a line or two at foot in what respects the plans of the two resemble each other so closely as to have led him to say positively that I ape Mr. Mallock." Mr. Caddy is too sensitive. He has not been charged with plagiarism, and there is nothing intentionally offensive in supposing that he had attempted to imitate a writer of eminence. It was something in his style, we presume, or something in his subject which suggested the idea of resemblance between his paper and Mr. Mallock's New Republic. But what of that? Mr. Caddy should deem it no small praise, for Mr. Mallock's New Republic is an uncommonly clever book. AMONGST THE BOOKS. (1879, February 1). Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918), p. 1 (THE LEADER SUPPLEMENT). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article198010175
EASTER OMLETTE.
Such is the title of an unpretentious little work, just published by Mr. George Robertson in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, and Queensland. If one were inclined to judge a book by its cover he would speak only in favorable terms of this "shilling's worth." The articles are eleven in number three being supplied by Mr. A. P. Martin, who is himself the editor of the "brochure," as also of " Melbourne Review.'' Among the othercontributors are Garnet Walch, Richmond Thatcher, F. R. C. Hopking, Dr. Moloney, and C. W. Caddy. The sketch " My dealings with the Bank of New Holland," is the story of a little history that I am afraid repeats itself daily in these times. Mr. Thatcher's tale betrays that skilful blending of the serious and humorous that he is so well known for. The poetry is far "above the average," and I hope to see Mr. Martin collect another dish of eggs for public approval next year. AN EASTER OMELETTE. (1879, May 20).Riverine Herald (Echuca, Vic. : Moama, NSW : 1869 - 1954), p. 3. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article115122796
NEW INSOLVENT.
Charles Wesley Caddy, of North Carlton, teacher. Causes of insolvency--Sickness of self and family, and pressure of creditors. Liabilities, £310 6s. 5d. ; assets, 10s. ; deficiency, £309 16s. 5d. Mr. Halfey, assignee. NEW INSOLVENT. (1881, February 19). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 7. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5972088
HOPE.
Thus Winter spoke, and dug- himself a grave,
Which open stood till Spring with tear-dewed
flowers
Filled in and, tripping through a grove where save
The bird or butterfly anear its bowers
Comes naught, her sister Summer met ;
Who merry, laughing cried, ' Ah, sister, dear,
Upon Death's roses are thy last tears wet,
Come smile on life. See three lives to one bier.
For our loved Autumn comes.' The beauteous three
Enclasping kissed. Oh, Hope, that kiss made thee I
C. Wesley Caddy.
Sydney, June 24, 1882. HOPE. (1882, July 8). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108207007
The Broken Hearts. *
Translated from the Italian, of"Giuseppe Venosta"
(1615-1671),
C. Wesley Caddy.
T[?] Broken Hearts. (1882, September 16).Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1907), p. 29. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70991024
Band.-There is some talk of a band being organized here. Mr. Caddy, bandmaster at Queanbeyan, has been communicated with, and is willing to teach the members at a very moderate charge. The only thing requisite to start the musicians is a few pounds, which could easily be raised by canvassing the town, the whole inhabitants of which would only be too glad to subscribe towards so desirable an object. BUNGENDORE. (1881, September 1).Goulburn Herald (NSW : 1881 - 1907), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article117442275
BUNGENDORE BAND Mr Caddy, who for the last month used to visit Bungedore two days a week for the purpose of instructing the members, has resigned his position as bandmaster on account of entering a more lucrative business in Queanbeyan..: During his time here the members have, been under his charge they, got on exceedingly well, and its a great pity he could not have been induced to remain for a few months longer. BUNGENDORE. (1881, October 18).Goulburn Evening Penny Post (NSW : 1881 - 1940), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article102820621
FATAL TRAMWAY ACCIDENT.
A journalist named Charles Wesley Caddy, 40 years of age, residing at 107 Dight-street, Collingwood, was accidentally killed by being run over by a tram yesterday. He was attempting to jump on a tram in motion in Gertrude-street, but slipped, and, falling, was run over by another tram coming in the opposite direction. He was taken to the Melbourne Hospital, but died a few minutes after his admission. The deceased was formerly a state school teacher, but has for some years been connected with newspaper work in this and the other colonies. FATAL TRAMWAY ACCIDENT. (1888, August 25). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 12. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article6899276
KILLED BY A TRAM.
Dr. Youl held an inquest on Saturday on the body of Charles Wesley Caddy, who was killed on the tram line in Gertrude-street, Fitzroy, on the previous day. The evidence showed that the deceased was under the influence of liquor and had attempted to get on a car whilst it was going at full speed. He lunged against the body of the car, and was knocked down. He was admitted to the hospital in a state of collapse, and died soon after his admission from fracture of the skull. A verdict of accidentally killed was returned. KILLED BY A TRAM. (1888, August 27). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article6899357
CHARLES WESLEY CADDY.-The good-natured editor of the CUMBERLAND TIMES, thus speaks of poor Caddy, who at one time edited Mr. John Nobbs' CUMBERLAND INDEPENDENT, [an honour (? ) which we also enjoyed some years ago] as the locum tenens of the editor, Mr. Courtney, during that gentleman's absence on a holiday tour : "Poor little Caddy ! Never was a gentler soul enshrined in so fragile a body as thine ; and never did man face grinding penury with a more cheerful heart than thou didst. Smallest and quaintest of wielders of the pen. Peace to thine ashes ! Few were the joys vouchsafed thee in the flesh ; may rest eternal sooth thy wearied spirit." " Amen" we say to such a prayer. LOCAL AND GENERAL (1888, September 8). Windsor and Richmond Gazette (NSW : 1888 - 1954), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article72557790
The Bulletin Case.— On Wednesday evening a public meeting was held in the Temperance Hall, Pitt-street, for the purpose of expressing sympathy with Messrs. Haynes and Archibald on their incarceration in Darlinghurst gaol for non-payment of costs in the late Clontarf libel action case. The hall was crowded, and the Mayor of Sydney (Mr. John Harris) presided.
On the platform were several members of Parliament and other gentlemen. Resolutions were agreed to unanimously expressing sympathy with Messrs. Haynes and Archibald, and deciding to take stops for their release; expressing the opinion that the law of libel as it affects the press of the colony should be amended ; and forming a committee for giving effect to the resolutions. The proceedings throughout were marked by a good deal of enthusiasm, andat the close of the meeting about £100 was collected in the room. No title (1882, March 25). Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 10. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111318206
John Feltham Archibald and John Haynes, journalists of The Bulletin, in Darlinghurst Gaol, March 1882 / unknown photographer. Image No.: a4157058, courtesy State Library of New South Wales
Funeral of the late Henry Kendall
The funeral of the late Mr. Henry Clarence Kendall, took place yesterday, the scene of the interment being the Waverley Cemetery. The ceremony was witnessed by some few of the personal friends of the deceased, but the attendance was by no means so large as might have been expected upon such an occasion. The funeral procession started from the residence of Mr. William Fagan, 137, Bourke-street, and prior to doing so the friends of the deceased availed themselves of the opportunity of looking for the last time upon the dead face before the body was closed to the gaze of man for ever. The features were calm and peaceful, and reposed amid a bed of deep rich moss, feathery ferns, and wax-like flowers — typical of those beauties of nature which, in his life, deceased had loved so well. The poet's grave is situated on a sheltered nook of that portion of the cemetery which commands a view of the vast Pacific, and is upon a spot on which the deceased had often communed with nature, and given flight to the poesy of his soul. The burial service was read by the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, of Waverley. At the close of this portion of the ceremony, and the words, "earth to earth," were being intoned, an unknown lady who seemed to be a chance visitor to the spot stepped forward and showered into the grave and upon the coffin a profusion of the lovely flowers with which the place abounds. So ended the funeral ceremony of Australia's most gifted poet.
Mr. Alfred Allen writes : — According to his own dying request the prince of Australian poets was buried in the Waverley Cemetery yesterday. The last act connected with a remarkable life was performed in the presence of a small assemblage composed of relatives and admirers of the wonderful genius who has so lately left the ' bivouac of life ' for the poetry of the unknown world. Such an occasion should have called forth the sorrow and sympathy of the nation, for the loss is a national one. In day's to come it will be a matter for regret that on August 3, 1882, when the last remains of Henry Kendall were being committed to the tomb, only 20 citizens could be found to stand by the open grave, while dust was cast upon the coffin that contained the mortal part of the most gifted poet who ever graced the pages of southern literature.
Those 20 mourners deserve mention, and I trust you will let these names go forth. Sheridan Moore. D. O'Connor, Harry Wood, H. Croft, E. Ward, P. O'Connor, H. Evans, T. H. Rutter, S. L. Rutter, J. Henry, W. Kendall, B. Kendall, J. Kendall, E. Fagan, J. D. Fitzgerald, J. Bruce, P. J. Holdsworth, D. Fagan, J. Butler, and the writer. Poor Kendall, with all thy faults, in ages to come the sweet strains of thy measured lines shall become the songs of a great nation. Thou hast left behind a fadeless name, imperishable glory will hover about thy memory. Thy grave by the shore where all that is left of thee now rests shall speak to the children of the fair Australias in a language the immortal great alone can utter. Funeral of the Late Henry Kendall. (1882, August 4). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108209275
This just after the death and funeral of Henry Kendall:
In addition to the gentlemen whose names were mentioned by Mr. Alfred Allen in Friday's Evening News as being in attendance at the funeral of the late Henry Kendall, the following also followed the cortege :— Edwin Caddy, B. Thatcher, O. Wesley Caddy, Victor J. Daley, and Mr. P. Hogan. BREVITIES. (1882, August 7). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108208557
Death of Henry Kendall
All lovers of literature, more especially in the realms of poetry, will regret to hear of the death of the well known Australian poet, Mr Henry Clarence Kendall, who expired last evening at the residence of his brother-in-law. Mr. Fagan, Bourke-street, Surry Hills — the cause of death being consumption. Mr. Kendall had long been ailing, and it was seen by his friends for some time past that he was gradually sinking, and must soon seek final rest in that undiscovered bourne from whence no traveller returns. For years past his name has been associated with the foremost men of letters in Australia, standing at the very head of those whose particular inclination led them to the cultivation of the art of poetry. Mr. Kendall was undoubtedly the poet laureate of Australia, and his early decease at the age of 40, leaves a void which will be very hard indeed to fill. Like many other men of genius (among whom may be mentioned the great Deniehy, with whom he can be fairly associated in the field of poetry and literature, being at the head of one as Deniehy was of the other), he was a man of singular impressions and temperament, and like him found the world was not always too kind to him. This led him into a vein of gloom which was unfortunately accompanied with, that reckless disregard for his health which no doubt had in the long run much to do with the undermining of his constitution.
A twin brother (the other having died some years ago), he was born at Ulladulla, New South Wales, in 1842, and received a private education during the earlier years of his life. When only 18 years of age, he commenced his career as a writer for the Press, contributing to the columns of the 'Empire' and the "Herald" for about 10 years. In 1862, he published his first complete work "Poems and Songs" but he evidently thought little of it, as he suppressed it three years later, considering it was altogether too crude to make him any reputation. During the time mentioned, he also supplied the Town and Country Journal with many contributions, both in poetry and prose, as well as writing for the "Freeman's Journal" and the "Sydney Punch." In 1863, he obtained an appointment in the Lands Department, and was afterwards transferred to the Colonial Secretary’s office, where he remained until 1869. But the trammels of the desk were too irksome to him,, and he threw up the appointment, and proceeded to Melbourne, where he became a contributor to the "Australasian" and other leading journals, including the "Argus," the 'Telegraph," "Punch," the "Colonial Monthly," and "Humbug and Touchstone." Among other good work done in Melbourne was a prize poem on an Australian subject. He entered eagerly into the competition and won the prize, his poem being considered by the judges appointed far and away the best. Later on, in conjunction with Charles Edward Horsley, he composed the cantata for the opening of the Melbourne Town Hall. From adverse circumstances, against which he had to contend alone, this period of his life, in which his one weakness came to the front, to the injury of his health and strength, he quitted Melbourne and returned to this colony, and went almost immediately to Brisbane Water, where he was employed until last year, when he was appointed inspector of forests, a situation which it was generally thought he would be able to fill with efficiency, his well-known love of the woods, forests, and silent places, in which he had for years been wont to commune with nature, and in which he had gained much practical experience, having thoroughly qualified him for the proper carrying out of the duties attached to the office. His health, however, was undermined and a few weeks ago it broke down completely. He lingered on until last evening, when he died as above. That Mr. Kendall was a true poet no one can deny. His verses had the golden ring and the bright imagery so essential to the completeness of this class of literature. A lover of his native land, with perhaps one exception (Adam Lindsay Gordon), there is no writer whose works have treated so much of life relating to this land. Living often apart in the depths of the forests in his lone Australian home, he was conver-sant, it need scarcely be said, with the works of all the English bards, and from them he accepted nothing. His style was purely his own. There was a glow, a colour, and a richness about his works that have never been surpassed by any poet in any country, or at any time ; and Kendall's early death is a loss to the world of Australia which all must deeply deplore. His bright genius thus early nipped in the bud shows another example of misdirected character. His power increased with every work he published, and but for the destroying influence by which he was enveloped he would have doubtless risen to fame as one of the greatest of living poets. His "Songs from the Mountains" was a noble work, and it would doubtless have been surpassed but for the reasons mentioned. His second work "Leaves from Australian Forests" was a great improvement on his first, and each succeeding book contained beauties still more rare. Not only has his poetry received the highest commendation in his country, but English literary journals of the highest class have noticed it with great favour. The "London Athenaeum"' spoke of his poems at length and in the most glowing terms. Two of his poems — "The Song of the Cattle Hunters,'' and "The Ghost Glen" — were published in extenso and the critic said : — If Mr. Kendall continues to exert his faculty as successfully as he has done in these two pieces, England as well as Australia will gladly recognise his place as a singer. He has both disadvantages and advantages in his distant sphere, but the latter preponderate. He occupies virgin soil, stands in the midst of a society whose characteristics have never yet been mirrored in song; while English writers are throwing up their pens yearly because they can assimilate nothing new. Let him seek in the great life around him those human forms of humour, pathos, and beauty which, touched by the gifted hand, cannot fail to win the heart of the public; and let him use his local colouring, a precious treasure to illustrate truths which are universal. It is impossible, of course, to say how he will succeed in the profounder labour of dramatic insight, such faculty as he shows in the poem before us being distinctively a lyrical faculty ; but that he has gifts there can be no question ; and his communication to us is so modest and so sensible that we are assured he will put these gifts to the best use, leave his imitative efforts behind, and strike out in the path which he is most suited to explore. Mr. W. B. Dalley, in writing of Mr. Kendall's last work, fully endorses this opinion, and speaks most highly of the creation of that brain which, now lies still in death. The work of his later years shows traces of the sorrows of his life and is tinged with the gloom which was in part the nature of the man ; while a part was doubtless brought about by his own weakness of character. It was only in the dedication to his last collection of poems that he wrote the following words, which are the closing cries of a life that seemed ready to give up its struggle with the world and its own inherent gloom:
"These are the broken words
Of blind occasions when the world has come
Between me and my dream. No song is here
Of mighty compass; for my singing robes
I've worn in stolen moments.
All my days Have been the days of a laborious life ;
And ever on my struggling soul has burned
The fierce heat of this hurried sphere." Death of Henry Kendall. (1882, August 2).Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 3. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108207669
Daley was profoundly affected by Kendall, as were all those he had as boon companions then. In a later article he puzzles or laments over why so few followed Kendall to his final resting place while so many follow those of means or political renown that may not have given what poets gave or inspired. He wrote this tribute days afterwards:
LOVE-LAUREL.
In Memory of Henry Kendall.
Ah! that God once would touch my lips with
song
To pierce, as prayer does heav'n, earth’s breast of
iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea
A song, to woo thee as a wooing siren
Out of that silent sleep which, seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the dead world under
This world of ours, song surely: should awake
Thee who] didst dwell in. shadow for song's
sake.
Alas ! thou canst not bear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.
Down through the clay there comes no sound
of these,
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer
Nor any knowledge of the soft-eyed Spring ;
But Death sits there, with outspread ebon wing,
Closing with dust the mouth of each new-comer
' To that mute land where never sound of [seas
Is heard, and no .birds sing.
Now thou hast found the end of all thy days
Hast thou found any heart a vigil keeping
For thee among the dead — some heart that
heard
Thy singing when thou wert a brown sweet bird
Gray eons gone, in some old forest sleeping
Beneath the seas long since ? In Death's dim
ways
Has thy heart any word ?
For surely those in whom tho' deathless spark
Of song- is Kindled, sang from the beginning
If life were always ? But the old desires —
Do they exist when sad-eyed Hope expires ?
How live the dead ? what crowns have they for
winning?
Hare they to- warm them in the dreamless dark
For sun earth's central fires ?
Are the dead dead indeed whom we call dead ?
Has God no- life but this of ours for giving ? —
When that they took thee by each- well-known
place,
Stark in thy coffin with a bold white face,
What thought, O brother, hadst thou of the
living?
What of the sun that round thee glory shed?
What of the fair day's grace ?
Is thy new life made up of memories
Or dreams that lull the dead, bright visions
bringing
Of spring above ? Are thy days short or long ?
? Thou who wert master of our singing throng
Mayhap in death thou hast not lost thy singing
But chauntest unheard, by the moaning seas,
A solitary song.
The chance spade burns sip skulls. God help
the dead,
And thee whose singing days are all past over — ,
Thee whom the gold-haired Spring shall seek
in vain,
When at the glad year's doors she stands again
Remembering the song-garlands thou hast wove
her
In years gone by. But all these years have
fled
. With all their joy and pain.'
And thou hast followed them by hollow ways,
To Death's dark land where hushed is Life's long
quarrel ;
A land unlit by sun, or moon, or star, e
Shining from the fair heaven faint and far
On sombre cypress trees, and lordly laurel.
There thou hast found sweet end for bitter
days
Down where the dead men are.
My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where all known life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping,
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shudd'ring on that awful verge
From which my soul shot, as a daring swimmer
Through dim green depths, and sought for
God and thee ;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there
be, .
Deep in the heart of space, whence unto Him are
A thousand systems as a fringe of surge
On His great starless sea.
And thou wert not. So that with weary plumes
My soul through the great void its way came
winging
To earth again. ' What hope for him who sings
‘Is there,' it sighed, ' Death ends all sweetest
things.'
When lo ! there came a swell of mighty singing
Flooding all space, and swift athwart the
glooms
A flask of sudden wings.
Let be, lie still, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth's secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul as a sword from its sheath
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
. I lay this laurel-wreath .
VICTOR J. DALEY.
LOVE-LAUREL. (1882, August 12).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 14. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111315797
The Late Henry C. Kendall.
In another page will be found a literary memoir of the late Mr. Kendall, from the well-known pen of ' W. B. D.' The following were the principal facts of his life : — Mr. Kendall, who was 40 years old at the time of his death, was born at Ulladulla. New South
Wales. When only 18 years of age he commenced his career as a contributor to the Sydney press, and two years later published his first book, ' Poems and Songs.' His later publications were ' Leaves from an Australian Forest,' in 1869, and ' Songs from the Mountains,' in 1881. In . 1863 he held an office in the Lands Department, and subsequently was transferred to the Colonial Secretary's Office, where he remained until 1868, when he resigned and went to Victoria, where he resided for some time and became a frequent contributor to the Melbourne press. He subsequently returned to this colony, and accepted a situation at Brisbane Water, where he resided till 1881, when he was appointed Inspector of Forests. He was the composer of the cantata for the opening of the Melbourne Town Hall, and the cantata for the opening of the Sydney International Exhibition, and the prize poem in commemoration of the last mentioned event. Latterly his health broke down completely, and after a few weeks' severe illness he died of phthisis on August 1, at Bourke-street, Surry Hills. The following' verses appeared in the Echo on the 2nd instant : — Only a poor frail singer dead, A sad, strange spirit gone, shall sigh be sighed, or tear be shed, That he is God-ward drawn ? His was no bird song carolled out, No love song dear and high ; He never raised one joyous shout Beneath a summers sky. He sang of sorrow and regret, Of passion and despair ; As one who never could forget, A dawn that promised fair ; As one on whom a hand was laid, To whom a harp was given, And in whose ear an angel said, Sing out the songs of heaven ! As one on. whom a shadow fell Before the promised day, And from whose hand a fiend of hell, Snatched harp and song away ; As one who through a weary life Toiled on in bitter pain, And spent himself in ceaseless strife To grasp his song again. Strange visions filled him with affright, And oft with shuddering dread, He felt the awful robes of light Go trailing overhead. He struggled, as a brave man should, The cankering curse to kill ; But strong, cruel, foes against him stood. He failed, as weak men will. At times a high power touched his tongue, And while not all forlorn, He sang as no man else has sung Since Austral song was born. We knew his strength and weakness both, And now that both have past, May pray, God rest him ! nothing lotL, That he has peace at last. Francis Myers.
T
THE LATE HENRY CLARENCE KENDALL. From a Photograph by Newman, of Oxford-Street.
A meeting of the members of the Athenaeum Club was held at the rooms, Castlereagh-street, on Monday afternoon, for the members for the purpose of expressing their regret for the loss the Australian literary world has sustained by the death of the poet Henry Kendall. There was a large attendance, ana Mr. S. Cook was voted into the chair. Some discussion took place as to what action the meeting should take in the matter, and various suggestions were thrown out. An opinion was expressed that the general public ought to undertake the duty of providing for Kendall's widow and family, and that the club should do something towards perpetuating his memory, either by a memorial stone or by establishing a medal or a scholarship at the Sydney University in his name as a prize for the best English verse. As the meeting was purely a preliminary one, it was eventually decided to a general meeting of the members, to be held at 5 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, and in the meantime a sub-committee was appointed to collect such information as may assist the general meeting _ in deciding upon some definite scheme. A preliminary meeting of gentlemen interested in preserving the memory of the late Henry Kendall and the welfare of his family, was held at the Bulletin Hotel on Monday afternoon, when the following resolution was passed, ' I viz. : — ' That a committee, consisting of Messrs. Thatcher , Holdsworth, Caddy, Dowling, Donahue, P. O'Connor, Godbolt, V. J. Daley, T.J. Cowper, H.S. Chauncey be formed to co-operate with any committee which may be appointed by the members of the Athenaeum Club, to take into consideration what is best to be done to aid the family of the late Henry Kendall, and perpetuate his memory.' Mr. V. J. Daley accepted the position of honorary secretary. The Late Henry C. Kendall. (1882, August 12). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 249. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article161923484
"Patience" is a howling success, and the siring of wool kings and dry goods princes' carriages extends down Castlereagh-street, long past Dick Thatcher's Bulletin Hotel door every night. The " fashion " of Sydney went to see how their congeners of England comport themselves, and we shall probably have a colonial aesthetic school, who will feed on the odour of faint lilies, writhe in amaranthine asphodels, and indulge in the other ridiculous phantasies that come out of burlesquing art adoration, Ono lady has occupied a box each night, and feasted upon the certainly unaesthetic limbs of the burly baritone, and even gone so fur as to express marked disapprobation of a female member of the company wooing him in pursuance of the action of the piece. Under the circumstances the abolition of cucking stools seems a mistake. The success of the opera is deserved, for we have never seen such mounting, or been treated so munificently in the matter of dresses, music and appointments. Some of the ‘supes’stand up in twenty pounds worth of togs apiece….LETTERS TO THE OLD MAN. (1881, December 15). Wagga Wagga Advertiser (NSW : 1875 - 1910), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article101815433
Moore was permitted to transfer his license for Wangenheim's Hotel to Richmond Thatcher. The latter was granted a billiard license, and also permitted to change his sign to the Bulletin Hotel. WATER POLICE COURT (1881, October 22). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 7. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28382790
And, in the city, the men of lusty intellect For example, Gus Wangenheim, of Sydney, famous for his beer, his lordly frame, his humours, his deep and unctuous voice, his skill in portraits and caricature", and the Bulletin Hotel's Dick Thatcher, who had played half the stages of Australia, who managed Mrs Siddons, who collected sea-shells and knew every beach from Tahiti to Geraldton, who founded newspapers and edited the "Newcastle Morning Herald", and the… " BOOKS OF THE WEEK (1953, January 10). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 8. Retrieved, fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18353139
THE NEW BOHEMIA.
By Victor J. Daley.
The room is full of smoke. The thin blue curl of the cigarette, the hazy vapour- wreaths of the pipe, and the thick white clouds of the cigar waver slowly up to the ceiling and then float softly out through the open window to mingle with the smoke of the city. Three candles standing on a hacked and aged cedar table burn dimly in the fumy air. One of them is fixed in a bartered tin candlestick, the shaft of which bends over on one side with a melancholy slant like a weeping willow over a grave. Waxen tears roll down it and gather together in a little pool of grease in the dish. The second candle is stuck in the neck of a blacking-bottle, and the third is simply glued to the table. They are all of wax, for there happens to be money in the camp just now. On the table — side by side with a euchre pack, from which the ace of spades is missing, one of the occupants of the room having carved it into an eye-shade— is a volume of Tennyson, whereon somebody has just placed a little pile of cut tobacco. Two or three English and American magazines, a score of newspapers from all corners of the colonies, some sheets of 'copy-paper' spider-webbed over with designs of battlemented buildings in Spain, caricatures of respectable citizens,! and titles of brilliant articles, which never developed out of title-embryo, are littered all over the room. And in the middle of all, like the idol of the tribe, stands a mighty beer-jug. The library is located on the mantlepiece, and consists of a blue-book, a volume of Watt's hymns in a wonderful state of preservation, Mark Twain's latest book miraculously tattered, a whisky-bottle, and a corkscrew. There is a museum there also containing a collection of old pipes and pocket-knives— the former ranging in antiquity and rank from the plebeian and prehistoric clay to the patrician and post-historic ' meerschaum. Pipes and knives are alike in this respect, that they are all in the hulk stage and unfit for further use. The room itself is large and lofty. The furniture is humble, but not paid for. It is made up of the table aforesaid — a very ancient boarding-house veteran, by the way— and half-a-dozen chairs; one of which is in the Pre-Renaissance, another in the Queen Anne, and the rest in the ordinary broken-legged and rickety-backed style of domestic art. A violin of antique make hangs in a green baize bag over the mantlepiece. The walls are covered with paper of a pattern unknown to Morris, the twisted flower-stalks and interlaced branches of which are apt, under certain conditions of the optic nerve, to look like snakes that seem to be wriggling about in an endless coil but always with a desire to crawl down to the floor and curl around people's legs. The other mural adornments are charmingly incongruous. There are pictures, copies and originals, covering all stages of art, from the crude efforts of Michael Angelo to the magnificent masterpieces of Montagu Scott. Frank Miles's graceful girls' heads are tacked to the wall in a group with portraits of half-nude actresses; and an ideal recreation, by Jack Flynn, of the long-lost Venus Anadyomene of Apelles is glued side by side with one of Clint's comic cartoons. The floor of this 'hall of dazzling light' is bare of carpet, but 'rich beyond the dreams of avarice' in spittoons. As summer is near at hand the fireplace is no longer devoted to its legitimate purpose, so the fender is now used for a glass-tray, and the grate utilised as a bottle-rack. There is no more inanimate material for description in this chamber ; the rest of the space is filled up with atmosphere and a humanity. The refined and delicately-nurtured reader will probably ask me what kind of a place this is I have brought him to ; whereupon I will reply : reader, take off your shoes— if any: you are in Bohemia.
What and where is Bohemia ? One at a time. It is the land of the hungry-hearted, and not infrequently hungry-stomached, the land of the lustrous-eyed and hollow-cheeked, the land of noble aspirations and ignoble wants, the land of momentary magnificence and month-long misery. It is that place over the gate of which is inscribed , the dreadful legend ' Give up hope all ye who enter here.' Where ? Everywhere, but chiefly in garrets and cellars. Always among the haunts of men, and generally within easy distance of a hospital and a cemetery. The gods love the Bohemian. That is why his grave is marked by the broken column — only it isn't a column but mostly a little board with his name, and the age be starved at, painted on it with tar or any cheaper ,i material. What would you have P When a man insists on constantly running his little hand-cart across the rails of Custom and respectability ho must expect to get crushed in the end. But the crushing yields so little to the many, and is so great a loss to the diviner few, that one might well wish it left undone. In vain. The wheels of the world roll round, and the face of the oppressor is ground against the face of the oppressed. Every man who dies drags another man into the grave with him.
* * * * * * *
Too tragic this! you say. Nothing so hopelessly sad, so appallingly dismal, could exist under this sunny sky of ours, and in this air that is warm as wine and soft as a dream of youth ? Perhaps it couldn't ;— only it does. You will-gentle— and may I dare to hope, fair ? — reader, please do me the favour of remembering that there are Bohemians and Bohemians. When you hear a person who wears bad boots and has a bulbous red nose calling himself a Bohemian you will hit his status pretty exactly by translating the phrase ' vagrant.' It is the fashion of dead failures in every profession, but principally in that of journalism, to call themselves ' Bohemians.' Mechanical pressmen honest fellows enough in their way while they keep to that way — consider that they belong to the confraternity if they only go to bed late and drunk. This with delicious gravity they dub the Vie de BoTikme. Every seedy fellow, with the intellect of an oyster and the ideality of a crayfish, who can claim some shadowy connection with the press, and talk jauntily of his debts and his duns and his drunks, is as a matter of course a member of the order. Of such is the kingdom of hell. Your true Bohemian, like the poet, is born, not made. His lawlessness of nature is governed by a law whose orbit is cometary and dreadful to the stolid millions who tramp with eyes fixed to the earth on their weary mill-round of custom and order for ever and ever. He is a worshipper of strange gods in a land of bigoted orthodoxy. He is an Ishmael among the sons of Isaac- Other people settle down steadily in life, drive their bargains, chaffor over their fish, and attend to their business like solid citizens. They have their reward. They prosper in the world, grow fat, wear stout broadcloth, play Jupiter Tonans at home, are held in esteem abroad, look about them with opaque and contented eyes-and — if they are not carried off prematurely by apoplexy — die at a good stupid old age and bequeath the mud that is left of them to the making of new mudheads. The Bohemian dreams of the Beautiful and the True, and with the pathetic enthusiasm of youth — Bohemians are always young — sacrifices a life which he might have spent usefully in selling sugar, to the building up of a shrine to these, before which all men shall fall down and worship. His heart is gnawed eternally by ambition which is sleepless-eyed and serpent-toothed. But his ambition is always noble. He desires with a great desire to be crowned with a laurel crown and robed in royal apparel, and taken on horseback through the streets of the city as one whom the king delighteth to honour. The grave elders will praise his pictures, the young men will glow over his golden verse, the white-footed maidens will dance to his delicate music, and the little children lisp his songs. And through these emanations of his soul they will become sweet-souled and wise themselves, and the world will roll buck to the age of gold. And when at last the grand Ijric of his life is done, he will die into the dream he has dreamt so long. And his name shall be like honey in all men's mouths for ever after. This is his vision and his desire. What is his reward ? Crucifixion. He is jeered at as a visionary by his acquaintances, and informed that he has genius by his friends, who advise him to ' keep up his spirits,' when, perhaps, he hardly knows where he will get his next meal. Nobody will purchase his pictures, nobody will print his poems. Some Colossus of clay, who sways the editorial sceptre in the newspaper office to which he takes his delicately fanciful little essay, tells him that it 'shows considerable promise, but is scarcely up to our standard.' So he drags on life from clay to day, sometimes in the seventh heaven of delight over a windfall of half-crowns, sometimes in the lowest hell of despair over an empty pocket and an emptier stomach. He has, of course, splendid episodes when he meets a friend who has had a 'streak of luck.' Then the Krug coruscates, the bar-girl's eyes glitter, and the sun seems to shine as per arrangement with him alone. But these brilliant breaks in the ashen-hued monotony of his life are all too rare. His journey through the world is a Via Dolorosa, the milestones of which are monuments over the graves of dead hopes. His ideal shines before him all the time, but it is a beautiful corpse-light that lures him to destruction. I speak now of your true Bohemian, who has an ideal, and spends his life-blood in trying to realize it ; not of the literary lazzaroni who only write to fill the pot — the pint-pot in most instances — and whose sole ideal is to see how much space they can fill with tawdry rhetoric and tumorous verbiage. Taken day by day and incident by incident, existence in Bohemia is only tragically comic to the outside observer; but taking the total of its fleeting joys and abiding sorrows, it is terribly earnest. Yet the Bohemian is gay with the gaiety of one who volunteers for a forlorn hope. He knows that he has no mercy to expect, and expects none. He simply accepts the conditions of the contest with Custom, abides by the issues and dies like a man. Poor, wild, splendid-hearted fellows ! you are dropping out of the ranks one by one, but still singing the song of the Girondino while a voice remains. Turn back, O Time, the hand that marks the flight of the golden years on thy gray dial. Turn back ten lustra to the year of the great vintage, We are in the Parisian Quartier Latin — the places of garrets and genius. Here dwell Murger, Karol, BisBon, the two Desbrosses, Chatnpfleury and all the Bohemians. They live a hard life painting pictures, writing poetry, and drinking strong coffee when they can got it — which is seldom ; and water when they can't — which is frequent. They dwell just under the sparrows, all except Karol, who is fastidious and disapproves of the system of renting apartments. His address is 'Avenue de St. Cloud, third tree to the left after leaving the Bois de Boulogne, fifth branch.' The winter is a bad time with them. Then they lie down in their cold fireless garrets and try to get warm by imagining that they belong to exploring expeditions in Central Africa. But when the summer comes, and the leaves are out, and the birds sing in the trees, then the Bohemians rush off and plunge into 'our woods of Ville d'Avray,' where a man can think out the argument of his epic and gather new suggestions for his great picture without being disturbed by the concierge coming up continually for the rent, and the blancliisseuse calling constantly with her tiresome old wash bill. This is a splendid season if you like. O the cheap wine they drank and thought nectar of the godB ! O the bright-eyed grisettes — the Maries, Mimis, and Musettes — they kissed and thought they were kissing the very rose-lipped Oythorea! Then back again to the dismal attic, to the hospital, to the morgue. Their endurance is Titanic, It is a divine madness wasted maybe — if there fan be such a thing as waste in a wise creation, which I doubt — but grander in its utterest failure than the successes of common men. The spirit of that Medici who shut himself up for ten years in order that he might temper a sword which should cleave diamond-stone is Strong in them. And what a small success was great to them in those days ! Murger, on receiving the sum of 350 francs for a poem written to the Czar, rushes into an Oriental rhapsody about it, calling it a ' hurricane from the North — a magnificent Aurora Borealis !' ' I ran,' he says in his diary, ' to Eiothochild to cash my cheque,' — no other house, of course, was rich enough to advance such an amount, — ?' from there to the cafe, from there home, where I plunged me into new sheets, and. dreamed that I was Emperor of Morocco, and married to the Bank of France,' It was this Murger who wrote in after years the Bohemian anthem :
Like a child of trite Bohemia,
Playing bravely out my part,
Friends, I march, forever forward
On the great high road of Art.
And for staff to aid my journey,
As a true Bohemian ought,
I have faith in long endurance—
Without that I should have nought.
Ah. ! the road was gay and smiling!
To the early steps of youth ; Wow, alas !
I see it clearly In the frost-cold light of truth ;
For I see it straight and gloomy,
With no havens of retreat,
And I hear my comrades calling,
As they march with bleeding feet ;
And I hear the shouts of anguish
And the shrieks of utter woe
Of the stragglers in the distance
Yet I onward, onward go !
Till at last I cross the borders,
And with worn feet in the brook
Friends, the hurricane is over
Now I dare to write my book.
It was also this Murger who died in the Hospital murmuring 'Pas de invsigue, das de hruit, dias de Boheme.' Such as he were the true Bohemians. They were born, sang, suffered, and died. God rest their gentle souls! But for we who live, let us live. Uplift the Phrygian cap. There is no land like Bohemia after all. or as poor Jeff Prowse sang — himself the brightest o£ London Bohemians : — Though the latitude's rather uncertain, And the longitude's equally vague, The person I pity who knows not the city, The beautiful city of Prague.
Forgive me, O faithful few who have followed me so far : those who have fallen by the wayside I dare not stop to think of. I have digressed in order that you should understand exactly what a Bohemian is and what he is not. How we can ship our oars and sail gently along fanned by favouring winds. It may seem strange to you that there should be any high and unworldly ideals in a country like this, where the solo desire of everybody seems to be to make money and 'get on.' li; in strange. but this ' getting on' is a very funny thing, by oho way. People are said to have 'go'o on' when they are mentioned in the papers as 'prominent citizens,' and when they are able to shout out from the sidewalk, ' Haw, John — mykemdge!' This is a thing to live for, if you will. And there be people who say that there is here no lack of encouragement to genius. Pah ! … if
Do you see a funeral procession starting from that huge-balconied, high-roofed house situated in the healthiest and most fashionable suburb of the city ? Count the carriages. You grow tired § the procession is over a mile long. Every mourner is attired in faultless broadcloth and black gloves. What was the deceased ? An eminent legislator ? A wisen judge? A world famed philosopher ? ITo : ho was a successful pork-butcher. See that other procession starting from a small yellow-fronted cottage out on the edge of the dreary sand-hills. You can count the carriages on your fingers. Some of the mourners are attired en reglei others in motley. The latter are at the tail end of the turn-out smoking huge wooden pipes. They only go half way with the funeral in consequence or money difficulty with the cabman. Tin? hearse-horses crawl along the Waverley-road as if they were ashamed of the whole business, and tho drivers of the various vehicles make no secret of their contempt for the meanness of the show. What was the dead man; A bricklayer who had had bad luck ? An unfortunate chimney-sweep ? Or perhaps, a man of note who had committed some crime which prevented his friends from following his remains to the grave ? None of these: he was only a poor poet. He was only the one ongoing voice in a Pandemonium of discords. He was only the man who comes once in a century ;yet who will be remembered when the league long immoral-followed magnates of the day are buried in the oblivion of original nothingness. That was all. Shovel the sand into his eyes. He was a fool not to have been a fool.
But he left other fools behind him of a similarly sublimely ridiculous type. Here, where the utilitarian and practical intrude their sharp angles upon one at every turn, it does seem absurd to find the unpractical and apparently useless presuming to claim a share of the sunlight. Yet even here there is a little band of brothers struggling bravely, and too often with its bleeding feet along the great high road, of Art. Of your mercy, O men of sense, let them live, It is a gala night with the Bohemians.
Mac Johnson, the philosopher, has just received payment for an article on ' The Probable Influence of too much Ether on the Heavenly Bodies,' in which he proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that cornets wove only drunken piano to that had lost their way. This explains the cigar'-smoke; also the beer- jug ; also the hilarity. The Bohemians, I should state, rent the room described in my first paragraph from an undertaker. It is situated directly over his coffin-factory, so that; at times the clink of their glasses above, and the clank of hammers on the coffin-lids below, make an accompaniment weird and unearthly enough, for a chorus of ghouls to sing to. When the members of the club rise in the world they intend to take apartments in a dead-house foi1 club-rooms. They will then be able to go from gay to grave at a step. I am unfortunately tmablo 'to give an account of the doings of the meeting this time, as I have just received a note from one of the Bohemians who has got into trouble, soiling me to bail him out. Anyhow, the secretary’s note book, with the rest of what he facetiously calls his 'property,' has been seized by his landlady for rent. By next week I have no doubt he will have broken his way through the roof and recovered them. Till then we must wait. THE NEW BOHEMIA. (1882, October 21).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 17. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111315939
THE NEW BOHEMIA.
By Victor J. Daley.
There has been some difficulty between the Bohemians and the proprietor of the club-room since last week. The fact is that the rent, though nominal, was not forthcoming, and the heart of the coffin-maker was as stone. He was a hard man, and had no sympathy with the brilliant irregularities of genius. The barbarous pay-your-way philosophy which crushes all the poetry out of life was more to him than the moat beautiful theory of Plato. Besides he was incensed because some of the Bohemians had gone up to the club-room to open a lot of oysters which the Poet had got from a restaurant-keeper for writing a gastronomic ode to be printed on the restaurant paper-napkins, and had, after eating the oysters off the Silver breast-plates, filled the best rosewood coffin in the establishment with the shells. So that when he was asked by Gill Carr, the secretary of the club, to let the rent stand over for a week, he spoke him never a word, but took up an aboriginal thigh-bone which was used in the shop as a hammer-handle and smote him on the head with it as though he were smiting a mad bull. But Gill Carr only smiled. Nothing could hurt him at that end. He was a leader-writer, and it was said his head had grown so hard through a habit which he had of standing upon it when he was thinking out his articles. Be that as it may, the rent had to be paid. A council of war was accordingly held in the corner hotel, where Gill Carr had credit, and it was decided that each member should subscribe some article of clothing towards a fund for the liquidation of the debt. When the collection was made it was discovered that the whole quantity of the surplus apparel which the club could rake together would not bring the amount.Then a noble sacrifice, before which the brightest instance of old Bonian heroism pales its ineffectual fires, was made by the Poet. He took off the clothes he wore and went to bed, where he knew he would have to stay until they were redeemed. But that he did not mind much, as he had got into arrear round at his lodgings, and saw no way, except by falling sick, to save himself from eviction. So he fell sick, and informed his landlady that he had got one of his friends to sell his clothes to buy medicine. It is so much more poetical, you know, to tell lies than to pay.
The collection was handed over to Mac Johnson to realize upon. Mac had a reputation for experience in transactions of this sort, and was credited with showing more finesse in his dealings with the tribes than any other Bohemian. It was he also who had perfected the pawn-ticket currency in Bohemia. Besides, he was a philosopher, and the other fellows were fools. Tour philosopher is a fool also, but he is a fool by rule and line. So the rent was paid.
Once again in the club-room over the coffin factory. All the Illuminati are here with the exception of the Poet. He isn't because his garb ofold Gaul has not been redeemed yet, and consequently he is at home grinding out bed-ridden odes. The smoke-spirals rise up simultaneously from half a dozen wooden pipes. All these pipes are made so that they will stand upon the table. This is convenient when one is writing 'copy' and is compelled to put his pipe down now and then when ideas rush too fast upon him for him to give attention to both pen and pipe. This does not occur often.
Your Bohemian, by the way, always smokes when he is writing, and generally when he is not. It is hard to say how the practice arose, except, perhaps, it was suggested by the Indian habit of smoking to stave off hunger. Anyhow every pipe in the room is in full blast, and the faces of the smokers are seen dimly through the haze as the faces of the gods wore anon of old through the clouds upon the summit of Olympus.
The thin, clean-cut profile of Mac Johnson is etched out against the semi-gloom as the profile of an old, iron-browed warrior upon the dark canvas of Rembrandt. His eyes are of the colour and clearness of topaz. A thick, drab-tinted moustache droops deprecatingly over the corners of his lips, as if it were conscious of owing some kind of apology to his chin for being be much stronger than his board — which, by the way, he shaves whenever he can get the Poet to lend him a saw-edged razor which that gifted being uses indiscriminately for cutting wood, corns, hair, or lengths of verse. Mac Johnson is very thin. Perhaps that is why he is a philosopher. It is, I think, a fact that most philosophers of any note were thin men. This is curious, and suggests an interesting query — does leanness produce philosophy — or philosophy leanness ? It seems reasonable to suppose that when a man hasn't anything to eat, and doesn't know where to get it, he should begin to philosophize away the necessity for eating at all. If this could only be proven it would be a shattering blow to the splendid systems of a score of tonweight tome-writers. But Mac Johnson started in life lean, though he certainly improved away afterwards what small capital of flesh he had till his specific gravity became little greater than that of a ghost. And notwithstanding that he knew philosophy was making a spectre of him, the dream of his life was to grow fat. For this and other reasons, he used to change his boarding-house about once a week. When he went round to a new one the landlady would glare at him with savage suspicion, holding the door half-ajar until hs would assure her that he was a consumptive and in very delicate health. Ho would then bring his carpet bag in and stay a week. In the dawn he would sally out for a five-mile walk to get an appetite. Then ere the tinkle of the breakfast bell had died away upon the gentle airs of incense-breathing morn he would f be down at the table and make the first fearful onset upon the cindery chops or the Eleusinian sausages. And he would never leave the groaning board until the sleepy-eyed steady man who is the backbone of every boarding-house, and stays last at table, had read the morning papers twice through and finally yawned and gone out to his business. Sometimes he would bring round his friend the Poet, who would then eat enough to enable him to stand a fortnight's siege. After a day or two of this sort of thing the landlady would begin to suspect that what she had taken in as an invalid was an alligator in disguise. And by the end of the week she would begin to wish it was an alligator. Then he would go stealing away his carpet bag and board bill and leaving the poor woman to believe ever after that a philosopher was a person who had no money and a bottomless stomach.
And yet Mac is a mighty sage. He has a poor opinion of the universe, though. There is a good deal of Sohopenhauerism crossed with Herbert- Spencerism about his philosophy. He has a plan whereby all evil is to be wiped out from the world and all the virtues fixed up again on a square basis. It is to employ the nations of the earth for forty years in making dynamite, and then have the total quantity obtained piled up in a heap at some central point— Bay Woolloomooloo — and get the too-late watchmen at the late Exhibition to keep sentry over it. Of course it would be set fire to before you could say Sir John Robertson, and the earth would be blown into chaos. There would then be a chance for some honest contractors out in, say, Sirius to buy up the debris and build a Dog-star town-hall therewith. Those elements that were good in the constitution of the planet would survive and form new combinations of truth and beauty. The rest would die. Individual existence Mac Johnson thinks of no consequence. The scheme is a noble one, but I cannot help suspecting that Mac thinks more of it as an expeditious way of getting out of debt than as a benefit to the human race. It is a peculiar tiling, but a fact, that the most clear-sighted people are frequently the most unpractical Mac Johnson is one of these. Ho can inform you exactly the way in which things are done in this world, and yet he can do none of them. He will tell you how to make a financial coup that will astound the Exchange and paralyze the Banks, and will walk away five minutes after wondering where in the name of Heaven he can raise sixpence. He can explain to you the minutest wheels within wheels of political plotting, and yet he can no more carry this knowledge into action than ho could if his head were a scooped-out pumpkin. How is this? Is it simple inertia — a dislike to be troubled with learning the little details that are necessary for him to know who deals with men ; or is there always a link missing between philosophy and history, between theory and practice ? Perhaps the perception of institutions as machines that are governed by certain known and unvarying laws leads to the consideration of the men who are parts of these machines as mere automata subject individually to exactly the same laws and to be managed after the same fashion. The wisest in theory are very often least wise in practice. Our philosopher wants too much to get at results, directly forgetting that human machines never work in straight lines. There is always a contri-petal and a centrifugal force to throw thorn into curves. And thon there are the Uncertainties. These are factors that baffle all calculations when though calculations have to do with individuals. It is next to impossible to predict exactly what any man will do under certain given circumstances by what you have known him do under similar ones, or what you know of his character as a whole. There is a mysterious unknown force, a primary and ancient element in the constitution of man, that few men are conscious of, because it is asleep, and wakes not except in times of earthquake and convulsion. It lies silent as the Titan under Etna, deep beneath all other springs of action. A crisis occurs in a man's life when honour, duty-pleasure, love, all the virtues and all the vices, urge him to do or leave undone a certain thing. Then the awful, sleeper wakes, and leads the man, as one who is Jed in dreams by a phantom of fci'e night, over a precipice. Honour, duty, pleasure love, all the vices and all the virtues, have no more hold upon him then than if they wore chains of cobwebs. He acts directly in opposition to their prompting, to that of his own reason, and to his own wishes. And when the thing is done and the terrible Unknown sinks back again through all the depths or reeling down to the undreaming depths below, the man opens his eyes, and stares around him as one who has been mad for a space. And suddenly all the passions seem as strong as they were before this blind force overturned them from their pedestals, and swept them from their shrines, as a whirlwind overturns the tall trees, and sweeps before it the red leaves of Autumn. He does not afterwards oven know of the existence of this force, but is content to leave the cause of his act an unimaginable mystery. So shall I. The man who raised the veil of Isis had not much to tell of her secrets. He died.
But the existence of this force may account for a number of deeds done in a man's life, which can be accounted for by no other reason or combination of reasons. . It may also account for the startling irregularities that are seen at times in the life of the world. Mac Johnson overlooked this in his practical philosophy of politics. Yet he is a great upholder of the glorious privilege of inconsistency. Every man, he argues, has a right to contradict his past career when and where ho chooses. In fact every man does ; but no man — except the Bohemian-born — allows that any other man has the right to so do. Charles Baudelaire — the poet of the Fleurs du Mai — is the only writer I have met with who makes the admission that the right of contradicting oneself is one of (he greatest among the Rights of Man, and one which is always left out in nineteenth-century enumerations of those Eights.
Think of this for a moment. One evil deed committed by a man at a time when perhaps dire necessity had him by the throat is like a drop of vitriol that burns through all the clean white pages of the unwritten book of his after life and brands them with the felon's brand forever. He may live like a saint through all succeeding time but ho shall gain no credit thereby. He is not allowed to contradict his one crime. If for a moment he gains fame for an heroic action some cur in the crowd, whose soul has never risen above the level of its native gutter, will cast the half-forgotten taunt in his teeth. And that cry from the cloaca will be taken up by manly men and gray-headed elders and howled at him till he hides his head, or turns round in very bitterness of heart, cursing God and His creation, and becomes all that these men make him. And these men are accounted the wisdom of their generation. Wisdom, thou art a fool masquerading in grave-clothes ! But, if treated by men with savage cruelty, does he not find solace for his sorrow with tender-hearted woman ? Ah yes, Heaven be thanked ! woman is very tender and very merciful — when she pleases.
Listen : There was once a beautiful, brown-haired maiden, whose thoughts were fresh and pure as violets wet with the tears of Dawn, who weeps over thorn because they are so short-lived and so fair. She was God's visible blessing dwelling in her father's house. But the false stranger came, and — and, alas ! the same sad old story ; ' that night a star fell from heaven.' She had with her shame, and the ' honour' of the family forbade her father to follow her and bring her back. Her mother, at whoso knee she had knelt and said her childish prayers, at whose side she had stood as an unbroken reed in times of trouble never mentioned her name from that day forth. No word of comfort was whispered to her by her sister-women in this hour of her great, affliction. She was cast out in the streets to die. And her death was awful, for the soul died within her and left her body to walk about a living corpse. Look at her now. She is standing at the corner of the street, just outside the circle of the gaslight, waiting like a tigress for her prey. Her eyes are hard and cruel, and scorn and bitterness sit upon her lips. No mercy has boon shown to her — is it unnatural that she should show none to Others? She revenges herself upon the women who have spat upon her and despised her by dragging down with her into the Circean slough where she dwells and debasing in mind and body their husbands, sons, and lovers. And this is the snow-souled delicate maiden who was once the sunshine of her father's home. She was not allowed to contradict herself. What are the ruined lives of a thousand such as who when the great doctrine of Consistency is at stake ? Is it not a miracle of God’s mercy that any truth or purity is left in the world at all?
And now I am tired of moralising, Jenny’s, bring in the jug !
If I may be objected about this time that I have diverged too much from my subject and grown altogether too irregular to be tolerated. This would be an error of logic. There is no regularity in Bohemianism except the regularity of erraticism. Consequently it is fitting that there should be no method escape that of madness with its chronicler. And fortunately madness is his normal state.
Next week I will continue this article and explain how it is that Gill Carr, the secretary, and Mac Johnson, the philosopher, have been missing ever since the Poet gave thorn three half-crowns, which he had borrowed from the man in the next room, to redeem his singing-robes. Singing-robes, by the way, have very little market-value with the money-changers. THE NEW BOHEMIA. (1882, November 4).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 17. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111317574
Portrait of F.J. Donohue and Victor Daley, circa 1883 to 1890 - F.J. Donohue (a.k.a. Arthur Gayll) was an author. Courtesy National Library of Australia available online http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-146669183 - Donohue was one of the early Bulletin writers.
THE LATE F. J. DONOHUE.
A BRILLIANT SYDNEY JOURNALIST
The late Frank J., Donohue, whose death took place on Sunday night, was a skilled journalist. As a youth he joined the press at Tamworth; thence he moved to different parts of the State, undergoing the trials of the country editor. Dr,. Garran, editor of the Picturesque Atlas, engaged him to assist on the literary side, of that notable work. For some time he also wrote for the 'Bulletin.' Twenty years ago he joined the 'Sydney Morning Herald’ and in that office the greater part of his journalistic work was done. The value of his contributions was enhanced by experience; gained during a trip round the world. He was a graceful writer— and as such he will be long remembered among Journalists. He was widely read, and was an authority on modern literature, and took great interest in art and music. His views on public questions were enlightened. In a political crisis he could always be relied upon to guide the public mind to the crux of the problem. He was quiet and unassuming, free from prejudice, and responsive to the stronger movements of our national life as the country developed. Always facile with his pen, he was at times brilliant, always smooth, logical, and pleasing, and when the subject made an especial appeal to him, vigorous and convincing.
Some of his descriptive work was of the highest quality. He is not the less worthy of remembrance by journalists, and of the attention of the public, because of the anonymity that enfolded and concealed him. In press circles he was regarded as a master of his profession; from the public which a thousand times had admired his work, he could claim only the respect which a reader mentally gives to an unknown intellect. But with that he was satisfied although had he chosen to seek greater honours by book publication, there can be no doubt that he would have enriched the library of Australian authors. He was a student of the early history of this country, and collected much data, with a view to publication, but for some years gave all his spare time to a business enterprise, and to a quest for health. Although a classical scholar, and possessed of a natural poetic taste that enriched his literary style, he was not more valued for these factors in his success than for his great store of work-a-day knowledge on the practical things of life. He flowed along on a broad stream, and his outlook was wide.
No journalist in Australia had a better grasp of international politics. That a leading article, inspired by a cable message received late at night, was urgently required, presented no difficulties to him. He knew his European political arena as he knew that of Macquarie-street. In literature it was the same; his years of experience as a book-reviewer and student had stored his mind with gems and restraint. His aim was to express sound opinions rather than dazzle the reader with threaded jewels of fancy, and the result of this schooling of his mind to the practical needs of the daily press was a rare blend of power and polish. He quietly yielded himself to the newspaper writers task of accommodating one’s self to the thoughts in the average man’s mind, and to satisfying doubts on the questions of the day. He was all in all a fine type of the alert modern journalist, always ready with the calm, sensible opinion, whatever the storm that raged in Parliament or elsewhere. He saw through the meretricious, and drove home hard at the heart of his subject. His work was much valued by the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ and his keen, strong brain and insight, vigour, force and finish of his articles did much towards maintaining the high standard of its leading and its literary columns. The death of this journalist means a loss to the press and the public, but among the younger school of writers there were those who watched the brilliant work of Mr. Donohue closely, and in this way his influence will long make itself felt. In addition to his work for the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ he generally wrote the leading article in the ‘Sydney Mail’ and for the past two years also contributed to that always interesting feature ‘Notes of the Week’. Owing to his bad health, he recently went to New Zealand, but became worse, and returned to Sydney in a state of collapse. He leaves no one big literary work to which we can point and yet as an anonymous writer; the public has much to thank him for. He was one of the Minds behind the scenes, a student, a thinker and a practical man—one who rarely ventured -out, but whose work was an ever-present influence for good, and a powerful lever in shaping public opinion. The funeral took place yesterday at Waverley Cemetery, the Rev. Father Begley officiating. Among those present were members of the family, Canon Soares (father-in-law), Messrs. J. O. Fairfax, T. Heney (editor 'S.M. Herald'), W. R. Charlton (editor 'SydneyMail') Samuel Cook, F. Gellatly, W. G. Pye, Henry Gullett, P. Proctor, F. Pascoe, J. F. Ellis, J. Bullen, W. P. Courtney, C. Lyne, J. E. Davenport, H. Lee, T. Donovan, J. Kenzie, T. Bruton, James Quinn, P. Quinn, J. J. Gandon, J. Ross, F. J. Broomfield, L. Wakeham and W. Bruton. Wreaths were sent by Messrs. John Fairfax and Sons, the staff of the ''S.M. Herald’ and the 'Sydney Mall,' and the German Club. THE LATE F. J. DONOHUE. (1908, February 26). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 556. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article164345566
THE NEW BOHEMIA.
By Victor J. Daley.
The Poet is still in bed, and his singing robes still remain, like his works, on the shelf. He has written during this compulsory confinement odes, sonnets, rondeaus, triolets, and every other conceivable form of verse to every conceivable living thing, from his washerwoman's daughter to the butcher's dog. None of these are complete. He seldom completes anything. Fickleness perhaps is a characteristic of the poetic temperament : anyhow our poet is fickle. A thought flashes …. lilts nucleus of a poem.' He commences to free the statue from its prison of marble. Gradually it appears— a foam-white Tenus mayhap or a Pallida Mora— but just, when another stroke would deliver it to the day he flings the chisel away in utter weariness of hbis own work, and allows the image of his thought to lie forever as a sphynx half buried in the sand. Being a minor poet, he is, of course, partially insane. If he were a great poet he would be, totally mad. He only writes by spasms — and the spasms are rarer than pheonices — but he has a gigantic genius for mapping out plans and fixing up programmes of labours such as Hercules when alive would have shuddered to contemplate. But the Poet is not afraid of them, for he never by any chance attempts to carry any of them out. I have seen half-a-dozen of these lists on his table — he always seemed to feel better and, these are his own words, glowed with a certain consciousness of duties done when he had written them out — any one of which contained the titles of as many essays, articles, stories, plays, and poems, as would take him all his life if ho lived as long as a gray-headed pike, and worked night and day, to even write a- rough outline of. But this doesn't trouble him. They give in his own brain, and he is satisfied. ' Born out of my due time,' he quotes from his favourite Morris, 'why should I strive to set the crooked straight ?' This sentiment may not be heroic, but I believe it to be wise. If a man thinks he has the making of a reformer in him, let him reform, in Heaven's name; but if he is a dreamer, let him dream. And when the struggle and dream are over, search for the marks they have left upon the sands of time, and then say which has been the more profitable to the world. When it comes to a question of choosing between hash and hasheesh give me the hasheesh.
When I called upon the Poet there was quite a lavee at his chambers; All the Bohemians were there except — O, sorrowful exception ! — Mac' Johnson and Gill Carr. These two brilliant but unreliable children of genius had been discovered by Pre-Adamite Brown the artist — so called from the supposed similarity of his sketches to the drawings of the Cave-men— in the back bar parlour of an obscure little drinking-den; in the suburb?, making merry with the money which Mac bad received to release the Poet's raiment with. And though Brown didn't approve of the manner in which this money was being spent, he accepted the position like. a philosopher, and drank with them while the price of a drink remained. As soon as they had; exhausted their unholy treasure Grill Carr, who is a great mathematician, hinted to the landlord that a calm and unprejudiced consideration of the integral calculus would convince him that there was another round of drinks to come before the correct equivalent: for the money paid over would have been received. To which the landlord replied that he was a plain man, and could not just at that moment spare the necessary time to listen to any guyveresque gibes or geranium-hued absurdity. He further added that, as the weather was fine and the road good, it, would give him considerable pleasure if they would take a run down as far as Tartarus, and stay there until he sent for them'.
This suggestion was received in gloomy silence and the noble three, seeing they could keep the bridge no longer, started away with aspects of such' majestic sorrow, that even the flippant bar-girl restrained the scoff that was rising to her lips, and dropped a tear upon the massive Teutonic silver bracelet which had been given her by a young English nobleman who is now analysing oakum, in Darlinghurst. Mac Johnson alone retained enough of that combination of 'philanthropic energy and philosophic calm' recommended by Herbert Spencer, to enable 'him to steer his way to a place where he knew, he could get credit for three drinks more. By this time he was as profound as Proclus and as mystic as the Cumanean Sibyl. The most ancient systems of thought, the most venerable philosophies, he ripped up with the jack-knife of jest and unwigged with the scalping-knife of scorn. As Gill Carr was then busy in explaining to Pre-Adamite Brown the secret of the Pythagorean system of numbers— Brown, who caved for nothing but art, wishing Pythagoras had been strangled in his infancy the while— Mac's philips pics were allowed to pass uncontradicted. After they had settled these matters and taken the last drink it was unanimously resolved that there were only three good men unhanged in Sydney— and three of them were poor and growing old.
When I entered his room the Poet was sitting up in bed. The Bohemians were disposed as picturesquely as a group of bandits in the illustrations of the 'Boys' own Story Book.' Some were perched on the edges of broken chairs, others throned on the equally infirm table. Evidently some exciting topic was being discussed. The Poet had a look on his face like that of a criminal in the dock, and the faces of those around him had grown unconsciously like those of jurors. I sat down on the end of the bed and waited. Presently the Dramatic Critic, who appeared to have been constituted the Judge Lynch of the occasion, said, in a voice of impressive solemnity : 'Prisoner, you are accused of being in love-— what have you got to say for yourself ?' ' She was so beautiful,' he murmured softly. This reply was received with the scorn which it deserved. Pre-Adamite Brown then broke in with the remark that he ' didn't think the affair was very important — poets wore always falling in love with fancied embodiments of their own ideate, but sooner or later they generally discovered that there was too much body, and too little bouquet, about the embodiment to suit their tastes,' ' But then they are so £B3thetio,' observed a person whose name or calling I do not know— but probably he was a bailiff put in by the landlady.
‘Aesthetic ! ' yelled the Dramatic Critic ' what have we done that we should have to suffer these outrages?; Day after day I have listened to soap-faced young men and mop-headed misses babbling about 'aestheticism,' mincingly mentioning the fact that a butcher's boy is c £B3thetin' because he wears a cabbage-rose in his hat, and giddily insinuating each to the other that neither is behind the door when it comes to a question of 'yearning.' and yet I have spilt no blood. But to see the sacred vessels of the Temple of Beauty turned into pewter pots in the hands of these barbarians is too infernal for human nature to stand. Toss up that beer- jug.'
When it was discovered that the Poet's love was Platonic and would not interfere with his Bohemian vows of celibacy he was dismissed with a caution. But he confided to me afterwards, it was not a bit Platonic. He was in deadly earnest. And then he gently drew out a faded pansy from between the leaves of ; a Lamartine,: and showed it to me with a shy look in his eyes such as a child might wear when one of its little secrets was discovered. 'I know she kissed this flower,' he said with delicious naivete, at the ; same time pressing his own lips to ib. I tried to restrain myself from smiling, but it was impossible. 'I understand perfectly,' he said quietly,1 'that all this must seem very ridiculous to a third person. But the look of the thing changes wonderfully when you play second person. You remember I suppose that instance of unfathomable simplicity where Andre Ampere in describing his first love with Julie Carron says : ' Julie, Elise, my aunt and, my cousin came to lunch ; I served the white Wine and drank in a glass which she had rinsed ;' and further, ' She sat on a plank on the ground with my sister and Elise, and I sat on the grass beside her. I ate some cherries which had been on her knees.' Well, on seeing that set down gravely in the memoirs of a man's life, written by himself too, I laughed as much as ever you could have done. But now I begin to perceive that trifles of this sort touch tenderer chords than the graver events of after life. After all the sublimate of life is love.'
I left the Poet to dream of his Dulcinea. In appearance he is not like a pooh at all. His hair is not long, nor does it wave or float. His eyes are not large, neither do they flash fire or grow glamorously soft with dreamy meditation. He is not indifferent to dress, though as a rule indifferently dressed. He is not extraordinarily erratic, except in financial matters ; nor does he feed continually upon his own thoughts, though sometimes ho has little else to feed on. In stature he is neither tall nor short. Finally, he is an ordinary, every-day, common-place looking person, who, as far as appearance is concerned, might as well be an under-gardener as a writer of immortal verso. I have given so much space to describing him because he is going to be the hero of a romance which I shall write down from week to week exactly as it happens. It may be a very sober-coloured web, or it may be shot through with all the colours of the rainbow ; but it will have the saving merit of being true. And that is some- ' thing in these daye.
As I was leaving I picked up a scrap of paper from the floor of his room, on which were scrawled the following verses. I give them for what they are worth.; The acute reader will observe that he gets them for nothing. !
Poppies.
These are the flowers of sleep
That nod in the heavy noon,
Ere the brown shades eastward creep
To a drowsy and dreamful tune,
These are the flowers of sleep.
Love’s lilies are passion-pale,
But these on the sun-kissed flood
Of the corn, that rolls breast deep,
Burn redder than drops of blood
On a dead king’s golden mail.
Heart’s dearest, I would that we
These blooms of forgetfulness
Might bind on our brows, and steep
Our love in Lethe ere less
Grow its flame with thee or me.
When Time with his evil eye
The beautiful Love has slain,
There is nought to gain or keep
Thereafter, and all is vain.
Should we wait to see Love die?
Sweetheart, of the joys men reap
We have reaped; ’tis time to rest.
Why should we wake but to weep?
Sleep and forgetting is best,
These are the flowers of sleep.
Next week there is to be a grand gathering at the club-room for the purpose of drawing out a prospectus for the regeneration of the universe. This little undertaking was suggested by a hint dropped by Alfonso XII. of Castile, to the effect that the Creation would have been managed in a different sort of style if he had had the conti act for it.
THE NEW BOHEMIA. (1882, November 18). Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 17. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111317844
A-Roving
When the sap runs up the tree,
And the vine runs o'er the wall,
When the blossom draws the bee,
From the forest comes a call,
Wild, and clear, and sweet, and strange,
Many-toned and murmuring
Like the river in the range
'Tis the joyous voice of Spring!
On the boles of gray old trees
See the flying sunbeams play
Mystic, soundless melodies
A fantastic march and gay;
But the young leaves hear them hark,
How they rustle, every one!
And the sap beneath the bark
Hearing, leaps to meet the sun.
O, the world is wondrous fair
When the tide of life's at flood!
There is magic in the air,
There is music in the blood;
And a glamour draws us on
To the Distance, rainbow-spanned,
And the road we tread upon
Is the road to Fairyland.
Lo! the elders hear the sweet
Voice, and know the wondrous song;
And their ancient pulses beat
To a tune forgotten long;
And they talk in whispers low,
With a smile and with a sigh,
Of the years of long ago,
And the roving days gone by.
Victor James William Patrick Daley. 1892
THE GOLDEN BULLET.
By Victor J. DALEY.
(Written for the Christmas Supplement).
LONG years ago, when fervid Fame
Around our fair Australia's name
A wondrous golden halo flung
When men, now old, were blithe and young,
And larger life than ours was theirs,
And from the far ends of the world
Across the waste of waters came
With eager eyes, and hearts aflame.
And hopes like banners brave unfurled,
Strong-handed keen adventurers,
Broad-breasted, stalwart kings of men
There dwelt in distant Cornwall then,
In quaint old-fashioned Padstow town
That lies beside the Western sea,
Watching its feet of little ships
And fishing-boats with sails of brown
A maiden, beautiful as Night,
With all her jewelled stars ablaze,
And passion trembling on her lips,
And in her bosom-mystery.
No lady fair of old romance,
For whom in gallant bygone days
King Arthur's kighes broke spear or lans
At Camelot, had eyes more bright
Or prouder mien, or higher glance,
Though sung by poets of renown,
Than Gwynneth Gray of Padstow town.
Lore looketh up, Love looketh down,
Suitors she had as Beauty still
Will have, though high or lowly born.
Ship-captains, mining captains, too,
In vain the maiden came to woo,
For Gwyneth was of wayward will
And laughed her suitors all to scorn,
Save two--the favoured of a score,
Named Luke Pentreath and John Treloar.
Fair-haired was John Treloar, and light
Of heart, with laughing eyes of blue,
And merry wanton wit, and tongue
That like a silver shuttle flew
Between his lips from morn till night.
The Padstow maidens said that he,
Such charm of speech was his withal,
Could lure the bird from off the tree,
The infant from its mother's knee.
He walked throng' Padstow streets, a young
And gallant figure, straight and tall.
Of other type was Luke Pentreath
With coal-black hair and hold black eyes
Wherein, as in the lava flood.
A heart of fire lives, passion dwelt,
But sleeping, as a sword in sheath,
The lashes of those eyes beneath;
No lover's lore he knew of sighs,
And speeches warm, if little felt,
The hearts of maidens coy to melt.
His thin lips told of Punic blood,
His square-set chin of purpose strong
That bides its time a whole life long.
And Gwyneth loved, as kind loves kind,
This lover with his steadfast mind.
But her true love was given to John,
With his bright 'miles and laughter li'ht.
Her heart turned towards him as the Night
Turns darkly-trembling towards the Dawn.
And yet, though rivals, John Treloar
And Luke Pentreath were comrades tried
Who had met danger aide by side,
And on the sea and on the ho: e
Had looked into the eyes of Death
Together with hut little fear.
And both were poor in worldly gear
As those who, so the Scripture saith,
Shall some day hold the earth in fee
Because of their great poverty.
And each--the fact she would not hide
Knew well that Gwyneth's heart of pride
Was set on things above her sphere
Which only Rienes can provide.
Then came the news that far and wide
In all the tongues of all the lands
Of earth, by Rumour loud was told
The tidings of the Land of Gold
That lay beneath the Southern Cross.
And Luke Pentreath and John Treloar
Said "We shall stand upon its shore,
For good or ill, for gain or loss,"
And on the bargain both shook hands.
To Gwyneth, walking on the sands,
Between the grey cliffs and the sea,
They told their purpose. "Go," said she,
"O lovers mine, who know not fear,
And seek your fortunes in that far
Strange land where all these wonders are,
And he who first returns to m',
With what will make life fair and free,
Shall call me his. I swear it here."
She gave her hands that oath upon,
Right hand to Luke, and left to John,
For John she knew a glance would hold,
But Luke was of a sterner mould.
"'Tis well," said Luke, and turning then
To John "As we are both good men,
Put your hand once more into mine
And swear, whatever we pass through,
Good luck or bad luck, foul or tine,
To be a faithful mate and true
To me, as I shall be to you."
Alas, that Love and Luck should be
So seldom partners ! In the land
Where gold-dust common was as sand
Upon the borders of the sea,
And others-madmen, idiots-struck
Thousands at tapping of a pick.
Nor Luke nor John had any luck,
Though fast and fierce and constantly
They worked, with the true Cornish pluck
That will not know defeat, from quick
Of day until the night came down.
They passed through many a mining town,
And saw with all their bars aglow,
The Cities of Ten Thousand Tents,
Old Ballarat and Bendigo
Then in the flush of golden youth
And walking in their streets, uncouth
Rough men, whose gait and bearing free
Had yet a touch of majesty
These were the Masters of Events,
And Fortune to their pick-points clung.
With pan, and pick, and shovel slang
Upon their shoulders, Luke and John
The wild chase followed, tramping on
From rush to rush throughout the land,
And though for them Luck closed his hand,
It was a free life and a -ran ;
Each man they met, or hi h or low,
Walked like a prince incognito.
But fortune smiled at last. They struck
A golden hole. The gay Treloar,
Whose tongue wagged glibly as of yore,
Named it in jest " Pentreath's Bad Luck."
A hitter jestang was the same,
Of sinister significance,
As seen by light of after-chance;
But Luke laughed loudly at the name,
And called the claim a splendid claim.
Natheless the best of luck has bounds
They "cleaned up" for Fitv thousand
Pounds.
Then Luke said gaily "You, Treloar,
Must tyke this heap of ye low ore
Down to the Bank, O lucky man !
And by the beard of Cormoran
I'll hold the chi'n against a scare.
Another patch like this, and then
It's hey for Cornwall once again!
Away went, with a smile, Treloar
And in that place was teen no more.
Luke learned of his mate's treachery
Too late, and then no word spake he,
But taking what was left of gold,
He ran it through a bullet-mould.
"Not much," he grinned, "an ounce-no
more,
But it will satisfy Treloar."
Revenge is sure of foot, and Hate
A blood-hound deep of breath, but Fate
Is surer-footed, deeper too
Of breath, and Master of all things.
This in his after journeyings
Did Luke discover to his bale.
Luck left him as one leaves a tale,
Wherein is nothing new or true.
And he was smitten by disease
And lay--the hardest stroke of all
For long months in a hospital,
And ate his heart out at his ease.
Years past and seasons came and went,
But made no change in his intent.
Wherever diggers thronged to seek
For gold from Clunes to Cooper's Creek,
Amongst them would be found the stern
And gloomy face of Luke Penutreath.
He had become a taciturn
I And sombre man who cared to speak
To none-no mate or friend had he,
For no man cared to probe beneath
His saturnine reserve to find
The cause thereof. A mystery
He was, and so they let him be.
They had their own affairs to mind.
But never had his purpose slept but he
Through all these weary years,
Through Hunger, Thirst and Poverty,
The Golden Bullet still had kept,
Luck once again upon him threw
A fleeting smile, then said "Adieu I"
Little he cared, for he could see
The end for which he'd dreamed and planned,
Draw near at last with headlong haste,
And kneeling on the upturned sod
Beside his claim, he cried. "O God.
Though small the thanks I owe to Thee,
I thank Thee now that Thou hast placed
The means of vengeance in my hand.'
The sun was slowly sinking down,
Turning the Western sea to flame,
As Luke Pentreath once more walked through
The narrow streets of Padstow town,
Little he saw of changed or new.
The fishing boats with sails of brown.
As he remembered them, still lay
At anchor in the little bay.
All things to him appeared the same,
But where-oh where-was Gwyneth Gray.
He asked an ancient dame, who gazed
Upon him with a look amazed,
"You'm Luke Pentreath come back. Ho ho !"
She cried at length, " You ought to know,
You'm come from where she's gone to, lad,
You see she married Jan Treloar.
Iss sure !-you m silly to git mad
There's plenty wenches to be had
For ain' !-'Twas when Jan came home
With money stickin' to'n like clome
Some folk say more and some say less,
I bain't quite sure, but I sh'd guess
'E must 'a brought home -Jan Treloar
About a million pounds or more.
Then 'e 'n's wife went back to where
He found the goold-'twant lost, maybe,
But anyways they crossed the sea,
And I've yird tell-it mayn't be truer
'N Gospel, that they've got, no doubt,
A ship-and-cattle farm about
The size of Cornwall there. Iss sure !"
Pentreath, with muttered curse and groan,
His back turned on the chattering crone,
His tongue was dry within his mouth
With unslaked thirst of Vengeance. Down
The street he strode with heavy frown,
And set his face towards the south,
And nevermore saw Padstow town.
It was upon a Christmas night,
The scent of wattle tilled the air
With fragrance like a perfumed prayer
By Nature offered up. The light
In Moora's windows still shone bright,
For Moors was the home of free.
Large-hearted hospitality,
The country-seat, to be polite,
Of John Treloar, Esquire. J. P.
A rider dashing down the road
That led to this serene abode,
Drew rein when he beheld the light,
And shook his clenched right hand thereat,
And cursed it as a blinking bat
Might curse the son, if bats could speak,
Then dashed again into the night.
That rider was no pleasant sight,
His long hair no his shoulders hunt,
A gun was at his saddle’s slung.
And in his seat he reeled and swung
Through weakness.
Suddenly the light
Across the rider's pathway flung
A long white arm. The horse took fright,
And from his seat the rider slung,
And then dashed madly down the hill,
The rider quiet lay and still.
They found him by the stockyard fence,
Bruised, bleeding and bereft of sense,
And brought him to the house, and there
He lay, his breath scarce stirred the air.
The Squatter g'zed upon that grey
Worn face, and trembling turned away,
But slowly opening his eyes,
The man in feeble tones said, "Stay!
You know me! Yes! You would, I knew.
I have been looking long for you,
But all this talk is now too late,
I have been made the fool of Fate.
The game's against the man who dies,
And I have lost it, John Treloar."
The Squatter, kneeling on the floor
Beside the bed, in broken voice
Cried "Luke, if I could have my choice,
I'd pray to God to take your place.
'Twas love--'was madness-lured me on
To that vile deed. Oh, Luke, can you
Forgive it? Gwyneth never knew,"
A smile sardonic played upon
The dying man's keen pallid face
And thin curved lips, now pale and wan,
Ad then he sighed," Let bygones be,
She shall not know it now from me"
THE GOLDEN BULLET. (1894, December 28). Portland Guardian (Vic. : 1876 - 1953), p. 8 (EVENING : CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article65398016
TO VICTOR J. DALEY.
After reading "At Dawn and Dusk,
Oh, sweetest of our bell-tongued birds!
I followed thee
Through flow'ry dells of honeyed
phrase,
Where glory- bathed in golden
words,
Thy lips seemed wedded onto grace,
Wing-tipped with fantasy.
All day I followed thee till day
Was lost in haze ;
Then one long, ling'ring, liquid
trill—
Sweet as Aeolian fancies' play—
All sense of being seemed to fill
Through midnights' mystic
maze.
And, love-lost, lo, I listened there
And dawn was bright;
Then, wrapped in golden memories,
I shook the dewdrops from my hair
And named thee to the morning
breeze
The song-bird of the night!
E. S. Emerson (in the Tatler).
TO VICTOR J. DALEY. (1898, August 18).Quiz and the Lantern (Adelaide, SA : 1890 - 1900), p. 16. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166444398
E. S. Emerson was educated at Nell's School, Carlton, Melbourne. He joined the Brisbane Courier and served as a sub-editor. Emerson also did freelance writing for the Sydney Bulletin, the Lone Hand, the Sydney Mail and other journals. From August to November 1909 he edited the Port Denison Times before moving to Perth where he edited the West Australian Worker. His father was a first cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Victor Daley.
Victor Daley, the poet, contributes in today's Catholic Press an impression of the Foundling Hospital, Waitara, conducted by the Sisters of Mercy. Editor Archibald, of the 'Bulletin,' has long regarded Daley as the poet laureate of Australia. Daley was born at Navan, two miles from the Cathedral City of Armagh. The Daleys were a small Catholic clan, surrounded by the Leemanses, Lyonses, Andersons and Hendersons, all Orangemen; yet, with the exception of a couple of weeks in the year, in the vicinity of the 12th of July, they lived in the most perfect harmony, helping one another in every difficulty, like members of a happy family. Daley has some fine stories to tell of the celebrated Archbishop M'Gettigan, who was an intimate friend of the family, and used to love to ramble with young Victor and listen to the boy's stories of the fairies who dwelt in the raths of Navan. The Archbishop was on terms of intimate friendship with the Protestant Primate, Dr. Beresford. Daley received his early education from the Christian Brothers in Armagh, and afterwards attended a Catholic school in Plymouth, where the family went to reside. Twenty years ago he came to Australia. Victor Daley. (1901, May 25). The Catholic Press (Sydney, NSW : 1895 - 1942), p. 13. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article104421984
The Pilgrimage
I had a Vision in the Night —
A Dream of Days to Be:
I saw a Fleet of Vessels White .
Upon the Shining Sea.
From morn to eve, .the whole day long,
In glorious array,
To sound of minstrelsy and song,
The ships went on their way.
With music like the stars ashine,
And green flags at the mast.
Over the deep in gleaming line
The long' procession passed.
Behind the keels a wake of milk
Rani seething to the lee,
And1 like a cutter shearing silk,
The sharp prows shore the sea.
With green the brows of all were crowned—
The young mam and the sage —
Methought that we were Pilgrims bound
On some great Pilgrimage.
And some there were from crested stoops,
By stream or harbour-side,
Where starry-crowned Australia keeps .
The cities of her pride.
And some there were who scorned at shows,
Yet played a royal part,
And made to blossom like the rose .
Australia's arid heart.
They came lithe-limbed, sun-tanned, and tall
From plain, and hill', and flood;
But, in the Irish hearts of all,
Throbbed warm the Irish blood.
****
We met a great Fleet from the West,
Sailing so proud and grand ;
They signalled us — 'What is your quest P'
We answered — 'Ireland.'
0 blithely did we answer then,
And blithely they replied
'Cead Mille Failthe, Irishmen —
We go there, side by side.'
'What brings you sailing, proud and high,
Over the heaving waves?'
'The Memory of our Dead that lie
In our ancestral graves.'
* ** *
It was upon a Morn of Grace
We saw the sacred strand—
The Mecca of the Celtic Race,
The Irish Holy Land.
And all the folk in all the ships
Knelt down with faces pale :
There was one word upon their lips,
The one word — 'Inisfail.'
****
We gazed upon that sacred strand
And swore by Sun and Sea, —
'When we forget thee — Ireland,
May we forgotten be.'
****
Bulb who are these with brows of bale,
Who came to meet our ships ?
The dour successors of the Gael,
With grim, unlaughing lips.
Was this the Land we sang at night,
And dreamt of Erin Green?
Our Fioa, our Banva bright ?
Was this our Rosaleen?
There was no solemn cairn upon
The gian'-, hills forlorn,
' The fairy-haunted rath had gone _
And gone the fairy thorn.
No bonfires through the grey dusk glanced
With brave and merry lights,
No lads and lasses gaily danced
On white midsummer nights.
Gone, gone, were all the Fairy spells
That lay on rath and keep,
And all our ancient Holy Welle
Were used to water sheep.
I saw on Tara's sacred Hill
A chimney gaunt and tall,
The chimney of a cotton mill —
May God forgive us all!
I gazed upon my Avon Dhu,
Beside the Ford of Bann —
'And you, at least, I said, are true' —
;But blacker still it ran.
The laughter and the joy were gone,
Grim Toil held here her sway :
Alas the sons of Heremon
Were fair and far away.
****
Mavourneen, mournful are thy waves,
And weeping are thy skies,
But Ireland of the Holy Graves,
The Dead shall yet arise.
In spite of change of sky or scene,
In spite of Time or Space,
It still shall flourish high — the Green
Immortal Irish Race.
And, though they sank beneath the main,
Our isle so dear and grand,
In every Irish heart and brain
There lives an Ireland.
VICTOR J. DALEY.
The Pilgrimage (1901, December 14).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 13. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111084246
Maurya.
(For The Freeman.)
She came from the Mountains of Mourne, where they still used to speak Irish, and she told me that her name was Maurya. Mary Kavanagh was the name they put down on the school register. When I first saw her she was sitting on a heap of stones by the roadside. I had a stone in my hand, and was about to follow the ancient custom and throw it on the heap, when I perceived the quaint little bluecloaked figure, with great, steadfast grey eyes shining out of a pale face crowned with red hair. I was afraid for a moment, thinking of the legend connected with that unholy cairn. A man had hanged himself on a tree near by, and had been buried by the roadside. Everybody who passed that way had to throw a stone upon the grave. It was the Irish execration against self-murder. If you neglected to throw the stone the ghost of the dead man would chase you down the road until you came to running water. Then you would dip your hand into the stream, and, in the name of the Holy Trinity, throw three drops backward over your shoulder, and the ghost would disappear. But I was taking no chances, and had my stone ready. 'Little boy,' she said, 'I want to go home.' I made the sign of the cross tin on one side of the stone, for safety, and the sign of the four-leaved shamrock on the other side, for luck, and went bravely up to the apparition. 'My name is Maurya Kavanagh,' she remarked, 'and I got out of father's cart, and mother is coming in another cart. And I have to wait. And I have a sore foot, and I want to go home.' Then I laughed and threw the stone away. She was only a little girl, after all. I took her in hand at once, and made her come away from the cairn. Even then, though I was only seven years old, and she a year younger, I shivered to think that I should find her sitting on a grave. The web of Fate was being woven darkly for both of us. We sat upon a green bank further up the Lonan — Lavan Lonan it is called to this day — and she told me in confidence that her father was a Fenian, and he was going to buy a lead quarry in Navan, because he wanted to get lots of bullets to shoot the English. This was a sentiment with which I heartily concurred. My own uncle was a sub-centre of Fenians at the time, and I myself was probably the most violent rebel in the whole county of Armagh. I told her so, and she kissed me. Then for the first time in my life I felt ashamed. I was wearing a holland frock and petticoats, and I knew that that was not the proper costume for the gallant occasion. But Maurya kissed me — and then began the grand passion of my life. After a while the cart came, with her mother and two brothers and a red calf in it. The mother took us both into her arms, and said that if I were a good boy and attended to my lessons, I should marry Maurya. That was a Bargain. When I got home I told my grandmother, and she said that it was a Bargain, and Mrs. Kavanagh could not go back upon her word.
* * *
In the front garden of my grandmother's house there was a great Fairy Thorn. They told me, before I began to know much about history, that Queen Meeva had planted it there with her own white hands. And, indeed, anything was possible in that country. Green Emania — which is now called the Navan Ring — was within an arrow-flight oi us, and little more than a mile away was a lonely little tarn in the middle of a field. They called it the King's Stables. The bottom of it was paved with blocks of stone, and many relics of the days of old had been found there by adventurous divers. It was really the site of the Great Rath of the Red Branch Knights.
The townland is to this day called Creeve Roe — and is almost entirely owned by Orangemen. Not far from it, and under the shadow of M'Cormack's brae, is Lough na Shade (Cear Water) into whose depths no man has ever ventured, because of the Great Snake that lies below guarding the crock of gold, which was the treasure of Cormac MacNessa.
It was at the time when the Fairy Thorn was in bloom that Maurya and I used to sit in the heart of it, in a cunningly-constructed bower, and learn our lessons. The birds used to come there and mind their own business, and take no notice of us. And my grandmother would come out in her white goffered cap, and pretend that Maurya and I were birds, and ask us to come down and eat some food. We used to wear bare feet in those days, except when we were going to school or to church, and it gave me no little satisfaction to take Maurya's little brown feet into my large, rough, manly, seven year-old hand, and assist her down from the tree. And while speaking of that tree I might mention that one of its arms grew into the thatch of our house, and my uncle, who was reading Voltaire and Tom Paine, rose up one morning and sawed off that arm because it was letting the rain come through the roof. My grandmother oame out and noticed the great branch lying on the ground. And she told my uncle that he had taken luck away from the house, and he would die early. And in the flush of apparent health and vigour he came home one day and sat down in our old rush arm-chair and died— aged thirty-nine. The old folk said that the Curse of the Fairies had come home, but the younger and more enlightened generation who used to read the papers said that he had been poisoned by emissaries of the British Government.
* * * *
Maurya and I went to school together. The school was about a mile and a halt away, but I knew a short cut which would keep us longer over the bogs. Besides, I used to set lines for pike every night, and we simply had to look after them in the morning. Maurya was a charming companion for a sportsman. At first she was frightened of frogs, but after a little teaching she knew how to discriminate between the black frogs, which are not attractive, and the young yellow frogs which any pike will eat. In the autumn days, when the corn was gathered in stooks on the upland fields, we seldom went to school. We had our lunch with us — it was mostly oatcake and butter — and used to sit squeezing together and laughing in the hollow of a stook, and shivering with delight when we heard the rain falling on the sheaves. No house was ever to be compared with a house of that sort.
* * *
The time came, however, when I began to be troubled about Maurya's education. I was in knickerbockers then, and felt grave and responsible. More than that, I was commencing] to read history, and began to see that it was not a good thing for a girl to grow up ignorant. So I stole a setting of eggs from my Grandmother, and gave them to Mary Breen, who had been wanting to get that special breed of fowl for a long time, and she lent me Keating's 'History of Ireland,' which I read to Maurya from cover to cover. Sometimes she would sit quietly and listen, but more frequently she would rise up and stamp her little foot and say : 'Why can't you be Owen Roe?' And I, who had an uncle who was engineering revolutions, would smile compassionately because I knew she was only a girl, and had no knowledge of politics.
* * *
But I had taken charge of her, and I was determined in my mind that she should know nearly as much as I did about history, and romance, and legend. So I said to her one night that I would be Diarmid, and she should be the wife of Fionn, and a great troop of heroes would be pursuing us all over Ireland, and I would kill them all unto the last man, who would kill me, and I would fall dead in her arms. She thought it was a fine idea. And then I commenced to elaborate. If she were not too frightened she could come up with me on the Eve of the First of May, and see the Fairies coming out of the Rath. You had first to put your ear to the ground and hear the grass growing, and then you and hear the fairy music. But, to make sure that the Fairies would not capture you and keep you in the Rath you had to have with you a branch of the Rowan Tree. We went to the Rath on the Eve of the First of May. There was a quiet stir as of unseen presences in the twilight. I was afraid, but I would not let Maurya know that. So I strode over the high field, and through the hazel wood in the fosse, like a man and a hero. But when we saw rising above us the dark Rath, in whose sealed chambers Ouchullin and Cono'bobur and Fergus had feated high and drunk deeds and the sons of Usa had died, and in which the Fairies still lived, the little courageous man took the little blue-cloaked figure into his arms — and cried. Then Maurya rose to the occasion, and said that she was not afraid of Fairies, or Heroes, or Giants, or anybody. So we went bravely up the slope of the Rath and put our feet into the little round hollow at its crest. Of course we knew very well that any two people who did this would have to love each other ever after. Maurya said she saw a fairy coming out of a door in the side of the Rath, and looking around as though he were waiting for somebody. I didn't see him, but she was quite sure that she did. We looked for the door afterwards, but could never find it. Never.
* * *
One day when we should have been at school we went to the top of a high hill, and I said, pointing south-west, 'Maurya, over there is Benburb.' 'What is Benburb?' she enquired, in her ignorance. 'Benburb,' I replied, 'is beside the Blackwater, and Owen Roe O'Neill met an army of Saxons and Scotchmen there — ' Maurya gripped me by the arm for a moment, and then spat on the grass, and wiped her lips with a corner of her pinafore. 'And defeated them,' I continued. 'We'll go and see it,' said Maurya. And we did too. And we went to the caretaker of Shane's Castle — the dark ruin of the Castle of Shane O'Neill, that hangs over the Blackwater — and he showed us over it. Lord O'Neill's own great mansion shines high and fair at the further end of a lake which is partly fed from the river. There were many stately swans upon the lake. Maurya looked at them with great apparent pleasure, and then she turned and spoke quickly to the benevolent old caretaker. 'Are they Protestants, too?' she said,
* * *
So long ago. So long ago. I had to leave Ireland and go away with my mother. They found Maurya and me hiding together in a haystack, and the hay was ruined by our tears. We wept, and we wept, and then we dried our eyes and Maurya gave me a pincushion, and I gave her a dog-collar, and we promised to never forget each other. And we never saw each other again.
* * *
Long years afterwards I received a letter with one line in it — 'Maurya — Dying. Come.' But the green grass was over her when I arrived.
VICTOR J. DALEY.
Maurya. (1901, December 14). Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 15. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111084230
THE IRISH TONGUE
In the part of Ireland I came from Felix Donnelly was looked upon as a great Irish scholar. His word was final on all questions connected with Celtic language or literature. And I remember he said that the true pronunciation of Irish was almost lost. He tried hard to teach it to me, but the 'dhirra' (so he called it) was, so far as I was concerned, incommunicable. This makes me think that, perhaps, it will not be an easy task to revivify the Irish language amongst Irish Australians. Yet, stranger things have come to pass, and if this does not happen it- will be to Irish-Australians a greater loss than they can lightly imagine. For the man who knows Irish can tell you what the winds in the trees are whispering, and what the dead are saying in their graves. His ear is on the heart of Nature. He hears that great heart throbbing, and knows the meaning of the mystery beyond.
The Irish language is above all others the language of lovers. You may find in French or Spanish, or Italian, superlatives or diminutives of endearment, but you will never find anything so soft, so sweet, so subtle, so sad, and .sometimes so rapturously extravagant, as you will find in the Irish language. It is a great tree with a thousand blossoms. Its roots are in the deep ground and its branches are in the sky. It knows all about Death and Love and Battle — it can flash like the lance of lightning and shriek like the trump of doom — and its invective is incomparable; But more than anything else it is the Speech of Sorrow and Longing. The penetrating melancholy of the Celt, as Matthew Arnold called it, is not a mere racial idiosyncrasy. The Slavs have the same weakness — or strength, but without the high poetry. It is the Celtic Conscience that is the salt of the earth and the salvation of the human race. Without it we should slide smugly into comfortable squalor. With it we are always grasping at the unattainable — going full sail to Nowhere, as an English critic once observed. But even if it be a visionary creed, is it not fine to believe that there are better things in the world than Beef — and more Beef?
The movement which brought about the Irish Language and Literature Convention last week means more than may appear upon the surface. It is not only a racial and national demonstration. It means a return to neglected Nature after long dally with Artificiality and Telegraphese, and Newspaperese, and Oleographese. There is no truth or worth in any of these modes of expression. The Basques and the Czechs and the Letts — as many of the latter as are left and dare to take; the risk — are striving to resuscitate their old languages and legends. And more power, to them. They are in the right path. But beyond all other primal races the Irish should ^remember their own legends, and learn their own language. Think of the Story of the Sons of Turenn, the Story of the Children of Lin, the Story of the Sons of Usna-rthe Three Sorrows of Ireland. There are tales as tragic in the Greek, mythology, but none of them be fine, and delicate, and visionary.
And then there is the strange story of the King of Deece (in lower Munster), who suspected that his wife was unfaithful and caught her by her long black hair, and went to slay her on his own head-stone, when she suddenly changed into a white bird, and flew out of the door. And he had to follow her till, he died. And the Story of Diarmid and the White Wife of Fionn — there is nothing; to equal, though a lot to compare with all these in the legendary lore of other nations. And who would not be proud to be of kin with the Countess Kathleen, who sold her spotless soul to Satan for gold with which to relieve her famine-stricken people? All these you may read a hundred times better in their original Irish than in any translation, howsoever good.
But where is the classic Irish to be heard? Eugene Ryan says in Connaught — and he ought to know. I remember that when I was a boy at home in Armagh we used to laugh at the Connaught pedlars who talked in high-pitched piping Irish, which we thought was like the talk of women, or geese. Yet in after years I noticed that the Cornish spoke in just the same key. And the Welsh, and the Bretons, and the Gaels of the Scottish Highlands, also, I observed, used the rising inflection. Is the Teutonic guttural the note of civilization!? I doubt it. The born intellectual races sneak with a head voice, the Goths speak with a stomach voice —as is, perhaps, appropriate. Omar Khayyam says that, the nightingale speaks Vai 'high-piping Pehlevi.' Pehlevi was, I take it, a sort of dialect of Irish — primitive Persian Irish.
3 Years ago, when it was proposed to hold a Pan-Celtic Congress in Wales, the 'London Times' trod heavily on the idea, and said ; that the encouragement of such aspirations - would lead to the disruption of the British - Empire. There was, accordingly, no Pan, Celtic Congress. Matthew Arnold — 'clarum , et venerabile nomen' — got himself into i trouble with the 'Times,' and with all right; thinking, sound, solid, pig-headed Englishmen of that date, by delivering a series of - four lectures on Celtic Literature, in the ? course of which he pointed out, in language , worthy of the subject, that the highest and - most spiritual thought and work of Europe . was of Irish origin. Times and opinions have changed since then, and there is almost a danger of the Celtic Renaissance sweeping . over and drowning the most precious part i of Irish Literature. Still it is good to know that the mills of God have ground so well. * * *
This Celtic movement is a great historical event, and, as Mr. Freehill says, will mean more to the world than it seems to do at first sight. Anyhow it has arrived in Australia, and— 'Cead Mille Failthe!'
VICTOR J. DALEY.
THE IRISH TONGUE. (1901, December 7).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 20. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111080721
We talked about old times and old friends, and I remember that he quoted Kendall's lines : —
Seasons come with tender solace ;
Time lacks neither light nor rest,
But the old friends were the dearest and
the old days were the best.
They made me think of our first meeting. It was in an upstairs room of what used to be the Bulletin Hotel, but is now called by another name. Richmond Thatcher, author and theatrical agent, kept the place at the time. He, in conjunction with Holdsworth, convened a meeting of writers to see what could be done by way of erecting a monument, or bringing out a memorial (I am not quite clear about the matter now) to Henry Kendall, who had just died.
There were seven of us in the room, and I don't think that any one of us owned the Sydney Morning Herald. However we subscribed something and passed several resolutions of some sort, but we didn’t erect a mausoleum. It was then I learnt that Holdsworth had been the bosom friend of Kendall, and was his literary executor.
I met Holdsworth again at the funeral of Kendall. Fifteen vehicles followed the poet's hearse, including two cabs in which Richmond Thatcher (since dead) and Charles Wesley Caddy (also dead) and his brother (still alive) and myself (more or less alive) brought up the end of the cortege.- The smallest butcher, or publican, or pawnbroker would have had a larger following to his last home.
Anyhow, as nobody took much notice of us, and we were at the tail of the procession, we drew up at every hotel on the road and drank a modest beaker to the memory of the .dead bard. ' This is what Kendall would enjoy, if he could look back and see us,' said Thatcher.
Holdsworth was far in front, being a friend of the family as well as of the departed poet. After all was over, however, I met him, and with a tear in his eye, he grasped 'me (i by the hand and
said, ' Poor Kendall's gone ! There are only the two of us now.' Meaning only two Australian poets left. Holdsworth was a charming fellow, but he never had any sense of humour. Victor J. Daley. MAINLY ABOUT PEOPLE (1902, February 1). The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People(Sydney, NSW : 1900 - 1919), p. 15. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article114726773
PREPARATIONS FOR THE BRIDE : A STUDY IN DECORATION.
STORY-SKETCH DEALING WITH ART IN THE HOME.
(BY VICTOR J. DALEY— FOR THE 'SUNDAY TIMES.')
Alderson, whom I had known as an excellent-boon companion, who would sit up and drink and play cards till the cows came home, became all at once awkward and reserved with me. I attributed this change of manner to illness; and suggested that he should see a doctor before the trouble became, too serious. He laughed in a constrained way, and, dipping his hand into his inner coat pocket, brought forth 'a packet of cigarettes and a puce ribbon. 'That's all right,' I said. 'Why didn't you tell me before ?' He lit a cigarette, puffed at it for a moment, and threw it away. 'You may as well know at once,' he said, with an affected air of being entirely at his ease— I noticed that his right leg was curling nervously around his left as he spoke. 'I'm going to get married.' The cat was out of the bag, and, purely as a matter of politeness, I asked him If I knew the lady. 'I think not,' he replied, with an insufferably superior smile, 'I rather think not.' It was delightful. I knew the phase of feelings., I might be good enough for him as a rough-and-ready male friend, but the young woman with whom he was in love was a being of another sort — an angel in petticoats. Not that he admitted that he was in love. Far from it. He said 'that she was a nice girl, and he liked her, and thought that she was somewhat fond of him. This is about as much as a healthy minded young man will say to another man about a woman — unless the woman happens to be his mother. The lady novelists who write love stories make their heroes talk confidentially about their amours like schoolgirls. It may read convincingly to unsophisticated spinsters, but it is not the fact. A man may confide to his friend that ho likes a certain girl, or even that he is very fond of her, but, if he is sober, he will, never talk seriously about being in love. Masculine dignity is above such weakness. He may, of course, say to his friend that he is passionately in love with Julia, or Florrie, or Lily, or Maud. This is merely grandiloquent burlesque, and is so understood. But he never talks in that strain about the woman he intends to make his wife, and the mother of his children. Man is in this respect the most modest and reticent of animals. Lady novelists, please take note. Alderson told me, as if it were an earthshaking secret, that her name was Emily. I said that there were worse names, and better, but that if he were satisfied nobody else had any reason to complain. This exasperated him, and he said that Emily was a celestial apparition, or something of the sort, and that if men had sense they would see that all women were angels.
Yet Alderson had sisters of his own ! Polly, the eldest of them, told me that Arthur (his Christian name) suddenly emerged from barbarism one day. Previously he used to treat her and the other sisters in a tyrannical fashion. Go — 'and she goes. Do — and she does. And no chivalrous gratitude for their services, either. But when they found out about Emily his reign was over. In fact, he voluntarily abdicated and descended to ask Polly and the others to be friendly with Emily. I asked Polly what she thought about Emily. 'Nice enough girl,' said Roily, 'but I can't imagine what my brother sees in her. When we were at school together none of the other girls cared much about Emily. She was what I suppose a man would call pretty, but there was nothing in her. Besides, she used to use powder, and was afflicted with a plague of hairpins.' The others said much the same thing, with the exception of Martha, the Sentimentalist (pity that her name should be Martha in this connection, but I cannot alter facts), who remarked that they might say what they pleased, but, for her own part, she thought that love in a cottage was infinitely preferred to any meaner passion in a palace. And she believed that Arthur and Emily were destined for each other, and she would go and stay with them and cook for them if anybody said another word. Nobody did, because it was understood in that household of girls that Martha was the heaven-born cook. Curious that sentiment and a talent for cookery should be found together, but the case is not uncommon. The father and mother of Emily were not openly consulted in the matter, but casually taken into confidence. This delicate and unusual compliment flattered them into abject acquiescence with the matrimonial intentions of Emily and Arthur.
About a week before the date of the wedding Alderson asked me to come and see the cottage he had taken. It was situated in a small, lonesome, crooked street in one of the marine suburbs. I found it some time after dark. There was no lamp in the street, but far down in the blackness I saw a light on a schooner. On my way I fell three separate times over three separate goats who were pasturing on jam-tins in the middle of the road. There was no paved pathway. The cottage was called 'Osborne,' but the brass plate with this inscription had been stolen from the gate. In the front there was a garden full of fruit trees and flowers that had run to weeds.
Alderson came to the door with a face grimy with perspiration, and a hammer in his hand. 'I'm getting the place a bit ship-shape,' he explained. . 'Been hanging up some pictures.' Then he took me into the dining-room, while I gazed at the result of his labors. There were two tragic oleographs in gilt frames hanging on the wall that faced 'the door. One of them purported to represent a. man being found dead in the snow by a St. Bernard dog. The other was a picture of a mother leaning over the cradle of her child, who appeared to be perishing in extreme agony. Upon the opposite wall hung a shocking bad copy of Longstaff's '.'Breaking the News.' ' 'Do you intend to take in boarders ?' I enquired. 'No; why ?' said he. : 'Because if you had boarders you would save money with those pictures. They would take away the appetite of an alligator.' 'What sort of pictures would you put up ?' he enquired sullenly. Then I told him. I would have watercolors only in a dining-room. And they should represent hunting scenes — if Australian, all the better — or bright, convivial gatherings of picturesque cavaliers, or bandits, holding up long Venetian glasses aflame with crimson wine. There might -also be on the wall a copy of 'Question of Propriety,' with the Gipsy Preciosa dancing before the junta of Cardinals and bishops, and one merry old prelate beating time with his amethyst ringed finger. And all these pictures should have large white margins so - as to give a suggestion of light and air. But no etchings or engravings. If they are good, their proper place is in the drawing-room, where people can look at them with time to spare for study and appreciation.
The scheme of decoration in a dining-room should be characterised by simplicity and Cheerfulness, and should be an encouragement to eat and drink and be merry. It is permissible to have a softly-ticking marble clock on the mantelpiece, but there must be no mirror over it. A dining-room mirror should front the door of entrance so that people coming in should be able to see at a glance if their hair was properly fixed, or their ties straight. One large green plant in a tall dark-red vase should stand by the window. It would suggest coolness and calm, and probably have the effect of making people at the 'table eat more slowly and deliberately than is the usual custom of Australians. Of course, in the case of people who could afford a breakfast-room, the color-note should be blue, even to the china upon the table. Blue is the waking color — the color of hope — the color of the morning. To drink your tea or coffee from blue-patterned china rather than from dull white, with the gilt edges scraped off in places, makes all the difference in the beginning of the day. A sombre breakfast-set causes depression, and is an incentive to suicide.
Alderson listened politely, and said that he had not given much attention to the dining-room, but he thought I would have a better opinion of the drawing-room. We steered our way around a table as big as a four-post bedstead, and entered the drawing-room. Glitter, glass. Expensive, cheap ornaments upon the mantelpiece — and a clock. I pointed out to him that nobody with the least pretension to civil manners would keep a clock in his drawing-room. It looks too much like a hint to speed the parting guest. A drawing-room should suggest cultured ease and bright affability, good pictures, or good copies of good pictures on the walls, of course. A few pieces of fine porcelain, if possible, but the terrible knick-knacks, and no spider legged whatnots and occasional tables waiting for short-sighted visitors 'to knock them over, and be compelled to make abject apologies. A few copies of the latest best books — with the leaves cut so that people Will see that you have read them — on the tables, which should be octagonal, or any shape but square, or round, or oval. In a corner, upon a red granite pedestal — or crimson-draped drain-pipe if the funds are low — a statuette of Psyche with a Shallow dish — not a vase — filled with roses at her feet. Sofas, certainly, but of a sort. Polite sociable sofas, not stiff and austere, or vulgarly free-and-easy. The carpet should give the idea of a green meadow overrun with red and white blossoms of clover — the red predominant. The cabbage-rose patterned carpet is anathema and maranatha.
Alderson drew my attention to the curtains- at the front window. They were apparently expensive. Dark crimson in hue. 'Make first-class horse-rugs,' I said. Curtains, like spirits, should be used very sparingly in this country. They collect dust and microbes. In any case, they should be light of texture. I told Alderson so, and he assented reluctantly, and said that he had not given much thought to the arrangement of the drawing-room. He had evidently another card up his sleeve. It was the bridal chamber. He seemed so proud of it that I had not the heart to disillusionise him. He had papered the walls himself. Such a pattern ! A maddening labyrinthine maze of weird flowers, that turned into grinning diabolical faces as you looked at them, and writhing branches that were like twisting snakes. It seemed like a fever dream or a vision of blue devils. 'Going to sleep here ?' I enquired.' 'Try it,' he replied curtly. 'Then rip that infamous paper off the wall. You may have the nerves of a Chinaman, but your wife that is to be is possibly different. If She has any imagination that nightmare on the wall will drive her crazy.'
'What do you think of that arrangement ?' said Alderson, changing the subject, and pointing to the mantelpiece, upon which stood a handsome gilt-framed mirror. And, as I am a living, truthful Christian man, this mirror, was semi -circled by an arc of photographs of the girls that Alderson knew and flirted with; Old sweethearts, in fact. Nice picture-gallery for a newmade bride to contemplate !
'Too ostentatious,' I said ; 'too many scalps. Take 'em down.' He tore them down with one sweep of his long arm. 'What else ?' he said truculently. . 'Merely this — that a bedroom should be without wall-paper. The walls should be painted green — not arsenical green — but the blue-green of Doulton ware. That is the color of repose. And there should be! if you can get it, a picture facing you when you awake — the picture of the Dawn as a young maiden holding a rose— the rose of Silence — to her lips. To open your eyes upon such a picture every morning will be an abiding joy and a splendid pick-me-up.' Alderson then took me into the kitchen and showed me over another garden at the hack. Then he. began to explain. 'You see,' he said, 'I don't know much about ?these things ; it's the first time I've been married, and I thought that women liked lots of little knick-knacks and things about the place, and hadn't any taste in particular as long as there were plenty of things in the rooms for them 'to shift about and rearrange ; but she's a youngster, anyhow, and I'll have to coach her up,' he added cheerfully.
I dined with the Aldersons a week after they were married. Mrs. Alderson was, as she informed me, twenty-three years of age. 'And he told you that I was a youngster, and anything would please me,' she said. 'Come and see this oven in the kitchen.' I saw it. The top of it was like a rusty colander. You couldn't have cooked a pie in it with a hundredweight of wood. The drain-pipe at the back was choked up, and the copper had been stolen out of the washhouse.
Alderson, with his ambition to decorate the other rooms, and make them pleasant for his bride, had no time to attend to squalid culinary or backyard details. ‘But he is a dear fellow,' said Mrs. Alderson. 'He wants to make things look bright and agreeable for me— and look.' We were in the garden then, and she showed me where he had tied hibiscus blossoms on the plum trees. —VICTOR J. DALEY. PREPARING FOR THE BRIDE: A STUDY IN DECORATION. (1902, February 16).Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW : 1895 - 1930), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article126425956
'Darley Road' circa 1900-1927, from Album: Scenes of Manly, N.S.W., Sydney & Ashfield : Broadhurst Post Card Publishers. Image No.: a105551h, courtesy State Library of NSW
Green Memories,
(For The Freeman.)
I have seen some St. Patrick's Day celebrations in Australia, and they made me homesick. Plenty of bands and blare of brass instruments, surplusage of green sashes and surcingles with gold fringe. Much pomp and glitter and glory and oratory and athletic sports and shandygaff and ginger ale — and no broken heads and no blood.
Is the great Milesian race running to seed in Australia? Where be the Orangemen of the good old days who would come swanking doon the brae and charge into the green thick of a Papist procession ? Tobias Leeman, of the soft heart and the heavy hand, and the.finest cursing repertory in Ulster — where art thou ? And Jock Anderson, and great old tough Tom Lyons — where are ye?
The heroes are dead. And, last, inevitable indignity, the grass grows green upon their graves. A little way up the road from the tlmtched cottage in which I was born stood the great House of the Leemans.
My grandfather used to say that if we had our rights and Cromwell and James the First had never been born, the great house would have been ours, and the Leemans would have been calling at our back door begging some seed potatoes and the loan of a furrow or two from our fine black-soil field in which to plant them. 'Princes in the land we were in the old time,' my grandfather would observe, 'and let neither of you boys ever forget the fact.'
I was about eight years old then, and his son — my uncle — was over 30. My uncle would nod gloomy assent, but I was in a cleft stick, so to speak.
I was desperately in love with Maggie Leeman — the flower of the Leeman flock. Seventeen years old she was, and used to wear her beautiful long orange hair in two plaits hanging down to her waist. And for her sweet sake I do believe that I would have done almost anything that might become a man. Old William Leeman and his wife, the thought of whom suggests to me red cheeked apples even to this day, and the six Anakim, who were their sons, and the two tall and stately wenches who were their daughters, looked upon the liaison with approving eyes. They said, without the flicker of a smile upon their faces, that our attachment might mean a good thing for Ulster. And Maggie would take mo in her large generous lap as we sat in front of the groat baronial kitchen fire and sing to me such songs as — 'There's many a cold winter's night, And sultry summer's day, Have passed and gone since James book flight From Darry Walls away. From Darry Walls away, me boys, From Darry Walls away, Have passed and gone since James took flight From Darry walls away.'
And that old grey-whiskered giant, William Leeman would lead the chorus, and the six Anakim would roar it 'out until sides of bacon hanging from the rafters would shake like leaves in the wind. That would be enough. Human nature could stand no more. I would slip off the knees of my sweetheart Maggie, and stand — a little figure in a brown holland frock — with my back to the fire. And all those kindly eyes would look upon me with glances of affectionate amusement. But I would be in a red fury, and care for nothing. 'Don't tell it, dear,' Maggie would whisper. 'Don't dear,' Hannah and Mary would say, 'it might annoy Tobias.'
Tobias was the youngest and most truculent of the Leemans. He had large, glittering, goggle eyes that looked like glass marbles. 'Say it boy, say it boy,' old William would roar out, slapping his thigh. 'Never mind Tobias. To H— l with Tobias.' And so encouraged, I would recite — 'Four and twenty Orangemen Standing round a well ; Up jumps a Papist And knocks them all to H — l.' H — l's gates are opened, The Divil shuts his eyes — Isn't that a warruin corner For King William and his Boys.'
And when I made this disloyal and blasphemous statement I would be ever so sorry for the poor Orangemen, and run back to Maggie and bury my head in her lap. She was a fine comfortable sweetheart, but before long she jilted me, and married a black Protestant by the name of Richardson. I was never so annoyed over a small matter in all my life before. But I had my revenge. On each side of the avenue that led to the Leeman mansion grow stately orange lilies- beautiful and proud as young Sultanas. Mike M'Glone and Phelim Donnelly and I crept out one night intending to tear them up. But my heart failed me. They were so lovely. The moon shone into their calicos and filled them with her wine. And the moon herself, rising behind the pale ash, and dark sycamore trees— the moon had the colour of orange. The very elements conspired against us. And so we left the orange lilies, and never hurt the hair of the head 'of one of them. And lest anybody should quarrel with this metaphor, I beg to state that the true Orange Lily has hairs upon its petals.
Early in the morning of the Seventeenth of March the entire Catholic population of all the townlands around Armagh would go by different ways and different methods— on jaunting-oars or on foot— to attend Mass in the ugly, square , chapel which was the only building wherein Catholics could worship in Ardmacha, the See of St. Patrick. A few years later one of the finest modern cathedrals of the world stood upon Sandy Hill in the name off St. Mary. We all had shamrocks — real shamrocks, not the common clover trefoil— in our hats or coats. And the colleens, with their green sashes and green ribbons. It makes me exasperated to think that I was too young at the time to appreciate their charms. But I remember now. when it is too late to fall in love with them, that pretty girls are grown in my country.
The sound of the fifes and drums and a long procession of men, with green sashes and white sashes, stamped with the Red Hand of O'Neill. The tune is 'The White Cockade': — 'The White Cockade is come to Town To pull the Orange and the Purple down, And over the water we shall wade To follow the Laddie with the White Cockade.' ^ Across the years I hear the lilt and ring of it again. And then the tune would change to the 'Shan Van Vocht.' The whole thing was injudicious and undesirable from the large and liberal Australian point of view. But I thought it fine and noble, and was filled with pride to see a disreputable cousin 'of mine, one Mick Daley, beating the drum in a dithyrambic frenzy, while the edges of it made blood run from his wrists. This was on the Keady-road. And in the distance on the road from Killara, which was the great trysting-place of the Orangemen, we could hear, clear and high and defiant, 'The Boyne Water.' And then you should see Mick Daley throw his head back and bang the heart out or the drum, and Felix MacGahan, on his big white horse, with a. green girth, reining up, and asking the procession to be thoughtful and not make a disturbance upon suck a peaceful occasion. But the fifes and the drums talked more convincingly than Felix with all his eloquence. And there would be a sweet time.
The true Irish blackthorn was somewhat scarce around Armagh, and so the poor people had to make a shift with ash-plants. Of course everybody knows that the real shillelagh is an oak sapling taken up by the roots, and not a blackthorn at all. But so far as I could learn, the desired result was arrived at as satisfactorily with one stick as with another. The processions would meet as if by appointment at the intersection of the roads. Then there would be a, pause of a moment or two, while 'The Wearing of the Green' defied 'The Boyne Water.' And then the battle would begin. Nobody would be entirely killed, though the light would be Homeric. The rush on either side would be for the drums, and the combatants would sway and struggle and reel around them as the Greeks and Trojans around the body of Pabroclus.
My black sheep of a cousin became a Berserk on these occasions, and performed prodigies with his drumstick. The Papists would be victorious, of course, They always were on St. Patrick's Day. I think there must have been some tacit agreement on this score between the rival parties. The Orangemen, always carried off the honours on the Twelfth of July. Then, when ' the battle was 'aver, the victors and the vanquished would go home for rest and repairs and refreshments.
Would there be bad blood between these bitter enemies afterwards? Take a case I remember, by way of reply. William Lyons was a large farmer, and one of the blackest Orangemen in the North. He got into financial difficulties to such an extent that he could not even pay for the ploughing of his fields. His friends gave him a benefit in the .shape of a Three Days' Ploughing Match. And the Daleys and Donniellys and MacGahans and MacMahons were there with their beams and ran furrows side by side, with the Leonians and Lyonses and Hamiltons and Andersons in fierce, friendly competition to see who could do most for the man- in trouble.
Take them for all in all, though they may be a.' savage; lot in Ulster, there are worse neighbours in the world than they are.
And so— Slantha!
VICTOR J. DALEY.
Green Memories, (1902, March 15).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 22. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111070067
A MILLIONAIRE.
(Creeve Roe in Sydney 'Bulletin).
When I walk into town,
Having no tramway-fare,
'My heart is not cast down,
I do not fret or frowns,
I am a Millionaire.
The way indeed, is long,
And longer still might seem,
But, midst the moving throng,
I hear the golden song,
And dream a golden dream.
The dream is brave and bold
A noble legacy
Ten thousand pounds is gold
Left by an uncle old,
Has found its way to me.
I am a Friend of Art,
And haunt the studies;
I play the Patron’s part
In princely style: my heart
It opens likes rose.
There is no painter poor,
Whose works I do not buy,
And make his home secure,
And board and lodging more-
With beer when he is dry,
The Poets, most of all
Are patronised by me,
I build for them a tall,
Fine communistic hall-
A grand phalanstery.
A garden; large and fair,
That: stately home surround ;
And scent of blossoms rare
Perfumes the pleasant air
Within those pleasant grounds.
And glasses gaily clink,
Much filled with liquor prime,
Whose bubbles brightly wink.;
And he who wants a drink
Need only write a rhyme.
In My phelanstery
The bairds find noble cheer,
And live like lords rent free;,
And merely pay to me
A poem or so a year.
I look around and sigh,
The trams rash up and down
How money seems to fly !
My fortune's spent, and I
Am still a mile from town.
I should have made my cake
Much bigger at the start;
It is the great, mistake
That most day-dreamers make-
To play the miser's part.
-But what means that to me?
Merely a moment's thought,
And wish a smile of glee,
Unto my legacy
I simply add a nought.
Then watch me sweeping by
With golden-crowned Romance!
My head it strikes the sky; .
I am King Midas!-- I
And Lord of High Finance.
Bohemian friends of mine,
The men knew of old,
I ask them all to dine,
And fill them up with wine,
And cram their hats with gold.
I give a dinner great
To creditors done-brown,
And place beneath each plate
A cheque for debts to date---
I wake and am in town
SELECT POETRY. (1902, May 29).Kilmore Free Press (Kilmore, Vic. : 1870 - 1954), p. 4 (MORNING.). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article57957696
The Man With The Memory*
(By VICTOR J. DALEY — For the 'Sunday Times.*)
I sat in Hyde Park on a. Summer day,
When through the dark- green leaves the.
sunbeams darted.
I watched the lights and shadows at their
play.
And thought how young they were, and
how light-hearted.
And, as I mused beneath the trees, a man
Sat ;down beside me there, and fell to
sighing.
His eyes were sunken, and his face was
wan ;
You really would have thought that he
was dying.
'What ails you, sir ?' in accents kind, I
said,
'Reveal to me your trouble. I may cheer
it
Away by merry jests.' He shook his head,
And told me it would freeze my blood to
hear it.
'You see in me a man beneath a curse,
Who at the thought of recollection
sickens —
A haunted man,' he said, 'whose plight is
worse
Than his whose case was once described
by Dickens.
'I do not grieve because I'm growing old ;
I’m not, as you' might think, an old Hyde
Parker ;
I am not poor' — he pulled out notes and
gold —
'Alas ! my doom is sadder still, and
darker !
'A year ago I was as blithe a man
As ever was to any club elected ;
My lines in life through pleasant places
ran,
And I was universally respected.
'A house I had (and have), just out of
town,
Wherein I rested after easy labors ;
It had (and has) a balustraded crown,
Which was (and is) the envy of the neighbors.
'I had a taste for Art, and gratified
The same ad. lib. — I am no story-teller—
My picture gallery, it was my pride —
I also had a very well-stocked cellar.
''Books I had, too, in volumes large and
small,
From Pater's calm to Haggard-like exciters :
My book shelves groaned beneath the works
of all
The finest prose and verse Australian
writers.
'Yet, I was not content — ah ! woe is me ! —
I prayed to have, to add unto my pleasure,
The gift of all-embracing memory,
And it was granted me— in fatal measure.
'Could I recall my good deeds ? No. Not
one
Would come back from Oblivion's silent
region--;
But all the mean and low things I had done
Arose like goblins — and their name was
legion.
'These reminiscences were hateful weeds,
But they appeared to me like pure white
roses,
When I began to recollect the deeds
Done in a score of vile metempsychoses.
'I was a Pirate on the Spanish Main — '
The deeds done there would drag a saint
to Hades :
I saw once more the blood of strong men
slain —
They walked the plank once more, the
lovely ladies.
'You think these memories should sicken
They do at times. I loathe, and scorn
them. Rather.
But who can fight against, his pedigree, ?
When he himself is his own true fore
father ?
'Hey ! They, were gallant days, the days
of old
The old man's -voice with vigor-rose amazing—
'The wine, the. women, and the - Spanish
gold !'
His sunken eyes like corposants were
blazing.
'Yet, strange to say, I never can recall,
He said, 'that I was ever saint or hero.
And now I fear — and basely hope withal —
That some day I shall know that I was
Nero.'
'HE must have had some pleasures passing^
sweet —
Rome burning, Christians slain in the
arena,
The scuttling of the ' barge— a business
neat —
That drowned his sainted mother, Agrippina !
'Young man, be warned by me, and never
try .
To blow to flame again a fading ember—
I may be Judas, yet, before I die :
Look forward, never backward— DON'T
REMEMBER
I watched the lights and shadows at .their
play,
While through the dark green leaves the
sunrays darted,
-And I knew why they were so blithe and
gay—
They had no memories of days departed.
' —V.J.DALEY. The Man With The Memory. (1902, December 14). Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW : 1895 - 1930), p. 20. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article126432158
Night Adventure.
All the houses seemed asleep, as Wordsworth saw them ; but the cocks were crowing, in my brain1. I couldn't sleep. The night called me. The darkness was like cool, purple wine.
I went into a coffee-stall at the corner of Crown-street, and ordered some coffee. A husky siren sitting at a little side table said that she would like some, too. She had some — with sausages. Then we walked down the street together, and sat on a bench in Hyde Park. She appeared to think me a person worthy of confidence, and began to tell me her story. Same old story. . 'Yes, I know,' said I, 'you are the daughter of a parson in England, and I you were betrayed by the eldest son of the I local Earl. Then you did not care what I happened to you, and you came out to I Australia. But in the dead waste and J middle of the -night you often think, I with tears in your eyes, of the rectory, 1 and the quiet old-fashioned garden with f its roses and hollyhocks. Afterwards ; you married a doctor, and he did not treat you kindly. ' 'How do you know he was a doctor?' said the lady. . ' He always is,' I replied. Quite true, yet curious. You never hear one of these forlorn nympths of the night say that her husband was a lawyer, or an architect, or even an actor. Always a doctor. Why the noble profession of medicine should be singled out for such disreputable fame is more than I can say. ' I would like a drink !' she said. ' Must wait a while longer, Violet,' I remarked — she confided to me that her name was Violet, and asked me to address her as such in future— the pubs will open at the market in an hour.' . . Then I lit my pipe, and fell into a waking dream. The poor lady was tired. When the dawn came out of the sea, and the birds awoke, her touzled head was resting on the back of the garden seat. Then I saw her clearly for the first time. She was a gorgon — a hecate— a hag, seen in a, nightmare. Fifty years old, if a day, and with a nose like a sphinx.
I woke her up, and we went down to the markets. I had a drink, but the publican would not serve ladies. 'Must wait a little while longer yet, Violet,' I said. She said she would, and I went into the market and sat down upon a pile of pumpkins. Presently a man with a load of vegetables came to me and asked me if I wanted a job. ' Anything to kill time,' I replied. So I helped him to unload his cart, then another cart, and another. Turks' heads and pumpkins, and cabbages, and onions, and potatoes. He had three stalls. I had to convey this produce on a hand trolly from the carts to the stalls. Then I had to help in stacking them artistically. After I had finished he gave me half-a crown. It was the first half-crown I had ever earned by honest manual labour in my life.
The lady was waiting for me. ' We will go over to the Hotel,' she said. It was then half-past six, and there was no trouble. She drank whisky. I had a little whisky also. Then I gave her some good advice, and she appeared to be considerably affected. Then another lady came in, and said, ' Hello, Mag !' ' Join us,' said Violet. 'I have a friend with me,' the other observed, winking diffidently at me. 'Bring her in,' said Violet. She came in, and we conversed together affably. Violet was good enough to say that I was a very nice free handed fellow who could be depended upon to set up several rounds of drinks. This was pleasing to hear, but the pleasure was somewhat spoilt when a lady in a battered hat lurched in and addressed the friend of Violet in terms which cannot be reproduced as they were spoken. She called for 'a long beer, and paid for it, and drank It by herself. ' So you go and call yourself a woman ! Call yourself a mate ! And you take my man from me ! And you know I have a sick husband at home and four kids and nothing in the house!'
' That's right, Mag,' said Violet, putting her leg upon the table and drawing a shilling out of her black stocking. 'Part!' I put down my shilling. The other two women put down their shillings. 'Count us in, too, ''said another lady, entering at the head of a procession. ' Four bob.' Eight shillings. : 'I'll see her on the tram,' said Violet. She did. Then I set up drinks for the procession. The four new comers sat on a bench in a row. Such a sight I 'never saw in my life before. The cherry old weather-beaten battler was sixty years old if a minute. Her daughter must have been thirty-five.
The granddaughter — a quiet, pale young girl who drank lemonade — was about sixteen. But the little old figure in black silk, with a black silk goffered cap, such as might be worn by the widow of an archdeacon, was the ancestress of them all. 'This is a human document,' I said to myself, and sat down beside her. 'Seventy-eight I am,' she remarked, 'and I'm only sorry that I'm not seventeen again.' She was a little old wisp, with black eyes that gleamed like burning coals. I thought it would be well for me to remind this wicked old lady that there was such a place as hell. The battler overheard me and remarked, ' Don't talk to mother like that. You'll give her bad dreams. Have some gin, mother.' The ancestor had some gin. 'I don't care,' she said. 'I was never sorry for anything I did in my life. But don't waste your time talking to me. Talk to the girl, my great granddaughter.' I looked at the girl. She was demurely sipping more lemonade. And I saw her evil hereditary gleaming out of the corners of her pale blue eyes. And I smashed my glass in the fireplace and walked out into the wholesome air of the morning.
Creeve Roe.
Night Adventure. (1903, January 3). The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney, NSW : 1900 - 1919), p. 12. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128799494
The Editor and the Bard.
I knew a man, long years ago,
When all the world was with rose aglow,
And every wind good luck did blow.
His hair was black, his eyes so bright
That men thought he had second-sight ;
His laugh was loud, his heart was light.
He worked so hard, and he worked so
sore,
For thirteen hours a day and more,
He became a famous editor.
But I had another game to win,
And followed the Piper of Hamelin
With dancing feet and with lifted chin.
That Piper played a tune so fine,
A tune about roses, women, and wine,
That I thought him the greatest friend of
mine.
And still that Fairy Piper free
In his motley coat, so brave to see,
Will sit and smoke and drink with me.
The Editor, so I am told,
Can, if he pleases, eat off gold,
But he is bald, and grey, and old.
He dines with Bishops on the best
Of viands, nobly sauced and dressed —
A Bailiff is my usual guest.
And yet I would not care to be
That Editor, though rich is he*—
The life of the Gay Little Bard for me.
Creeve Roe
The Editor and the Bard. (1903, May 30).The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney, NSW : 1900 - 1919), p. 11. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128798380
VICTOR DALEY.
Daley is off for a cruise in the South Seas. He is regarded by "Bulletin " Archibald as THE poet of Australia, but that opinion is not generally shared. He plays second fiddle to Kendall, and many of his pieces are stilted and mechanical. The " Bulletin " Red Page sage has barracked unsuccessfully to get Victor a pension from the N.S.W. Government on the merits of his literary work. Daley's book, "At Dawn and Dusk," has not met with the sale that the class of its contents warranted. Australia chooses very badly when it takes Banjo and Ogilvie in preference to Kendall and Daley. VICTOR DALEY. (1903, June 19). Westralian Worker (Perth, WA : 1900 - 1951), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article148323540
Editor Archibald, of the Bulletin, is convalescing slowly at Manly. Sydney Day By Day. (1903, August 8). The Temora Star (NSW : 1881 - 1883; 1899 - 1906; 1914; 1925; 1933), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article215020600
The Ovalau returned from a very successful excursion to the South Seas on Monday. Among the passengers were Bishop Broyer (of the R.C. mission at Samoa) and several R.C. priests, Mr. Victor Daley, the well-known writer, Mrs. C. M. Woodford, wife of the British Resident at the Solomons, &c. While the Manly was proceeding from Sydney to Manly on Saturday at 2.30 p.m. Mrs. Ellen Wallace, married, of Russell-street, Burwood, jumped overboard opposite the entrance to the harbour. Arthur Rosenthall, of the Steyne Hotel, jumped overboard and swam to the rescue of the woman, who was about 40 yards away. Another passenger, Mr. A. J. Walker, of the Commercial Bank, North Sydney, also jumped overboard with a lifebuoy and assisted Mr. Rosenthall to support the unconscious woman. The three were picked up by the launch Northumbria, owned by Dr. Read, who, with the aid of his sou and Mr. Walker, succeeded in restoring the woman to semi-consciousness. She was conveyed to Circular Quay and thence to Sydney Hospital, where she died on Sunday morning. Commonwealth Items. (1903, August 26- Wednesday).The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 530. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article165190749
Mr. Victor Daley's arrival by the Ovalau in Sydney on Sunday, contradicted the disquieting rumours current in Sydney last week that he had left his bones in the Solomon Islands. Happily he is still in the flesh, for we couldn't afford to lose him. Besides, although he makes an excellent poet, he would make but a poor meal. MAINLY ABOUT PEOPLE. (1903, August 29). The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney, NSW : 1900 - 1919), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128797853
Still anti-Bailiff!:
This story, so eminently characteristic of the man, is told of Victor Daley, the poet. At one time Mrs. Daley took in 'paying guests,' and one of them wanted to cut out the paying part and elope during the hours of darkness. He had no idea that Daley was the boss of the house, and being anxious to get his port manteau out unnoticed, he confided his intention to Daley, and asked him to stand ready to receive it when he lowered it from the window. Daley readily consented to lend his aid in the escape, and carried out his share of the elopement like a true pal! He actually helped the light-heeled lodger to rob him! The joke was too delicious to spoil. RANDOM RINKLES. (1903, September 9).Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW : 1900 - 1954), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article167257101
Victor Daley, the poet, returned from his South Seas trip, at a little reception at his Manly residence the other day, had some interesting incidents to tell of life on the Solomon Islands (Writes C.C.). - The bright-polished savage does not exist in these isles, When a Solomon native is thumped, a cloud of dust arises from his skin as if he were a shaken mat, the beautiful blue ocean being little used for bathing purposes. The natives wore as little as possible, and employ their leisure largely an chewing the betel-nut. Men, women, and children indulge in this practice, the result being rather disgusting as the red juice stains lips and chin the colour of blood. Mr. Daley believes that it would be comparatively easy to get into the practice, which, by the way, seems perfectly harmless. The betel nut does not intoxicate but imparts a pleasant sense of warmth and comfort to the system. In his drawing-room. which is furnished in Eastern style, Mr. Daley keeps a few poisoned arrows for his enemies, who, if touched by them, would, linger some days in agony before expiring. I was consequently much gratified when the poet graciously prevented me from playing with the sharper end of the weapons. TOPICS FOR THE BLOCK. (1903, October 17). The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), p. 44. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article138692904
Miss Constance Clyde entertained a number of her friends on Wednesday evening at a most enjoyable 'at home' in Mrs. Fisher's studio, which, she made an opportunity of saying ''good-bye' prior to her departure for Europe. There was a large and representative gathering, among whom were Mr. and Mrs. Victor Daly, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Broomfield, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Illingworth, and Miss Illingworth, Mr. and Mrs. O'Donohue, Miss Una Kidgell, Miss Fowler, Miss O'Sullivan, Mr. Nelson Illingworth, jun., Mrs. Duvet, Miss R. Wills, Miss Foster, Messrs. Roderic Quinn, E. J. Brady, Harry Lawson, W. Harper, D. O’Sulivan, and A. J. Watkins. During the evening Mr. Victor Daly, in a short, little speech, presented Miss Clyde with a purse of sovereigns on behalf of her friends. On Saturday Miss Clyde left for London by the Afric, when she received a most hearty send-off by her friends. It is an open secret that a book of hers has been accepted by a London publisher. WOMAN'S PAGE (1903, November 28).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 30. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108258317
Meanwhile, in Manly:
Perhaps the most attractive outdoor entertainment in Sydney just now is the Steyne Court, whose opening by the Hon. T. Wardell last –week caused quite a sensation in 'Our Village’. There is no such popular watering-place in Australia as Manly and the surprise is that something of the kind was not hit upon long since. At any rate this plucky venture has come to stay. On the opening day, some 20,000 visitors invaded Manly to witness and enjoy tho round of novelties at the Steyne Court; and the crowds continue.- 'Shooting the Chutes,' the Tobogganing Slide, and the Fiery Dragon are in themselves powerful to attract and keep attention, but there is besides quite a day's entertainment in other respects. Children and adults are equally delighted, and Manly should benefit largely from a venture upon which some £8000 has been expended. AMUSEMENTS. (1903, December 26).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 26. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108257868
WATER CHUTE, MANLY. Courtesy Josef Lebovic Gallery collection no. 1 and National Museum of Australia.
Manly Water Chute and Toboggan, 1903
A critic of the quite opinionated kind, then the Editor of 'Truth':
AUSTRALIAN ART AND ARTISTS.
Whether in music, painting, poetry, sculpture, or the drama, Australian artists and their methods, if racy of the soil, are reminiscent, if not redo-lent of Botany Bay. What there is of music is not always of the best, what there is of the best has to go abroad to be bettered, and to remain away in order to be appreciated. Of painting there has not positively been produced a single picture by an Australian on an Australian subject that can rank above a "pot-boiler," or that is likely to retain rank as a real work art for a score of years, or to be worth a score of sovereigns to any connoisseur at the end of that period, should it survive so long. In poetry, well, there has been a plethora of poets whose poetry has been praised to such a pitch by themselves and their poetasting pals that they have come to believe themselves inspired, as, indeed, they often are by "swankey" and sentimental sewage. The best that can befal the average Australian poet is to become a "Bulletin" bard, which is polite for "boomed" bard, with a weakness for borrowing "bobs."
What a dreary record of drunkenness, disease, despair, desperation, dipsomania, delirium tremens, and death is not afforded by the careers of Australian poets and poetasters. There have been, and still are, about as many poets to the acre in Australia as there are potatoes. The best of them are very few, and the majority of that few died drunk or from the effects of drink. But drink should be no disqualification for poetry, seeing that Shakespeare died from the effects of a boozing bout with his brother poet, rare old Ben Johnson. Among the poets and poetasters who died of the potency of their potations may be mentioned Adam Lindsay Gordon, Marcus Clark, Kendal, Deniehey, and Barcroft Boake, the first and last-named by their own hands. Of the other poets who seem to have sipped inspiration at the Pierian spring, Brunton-Stephens and John Farrell are gone; those who remain are twins, Roderick Quin is one, t'other isn't yet born. The remainder are a mob of rattling rhymsters, jovial jinglers and delirious doggerelists, whose inspiration is either drawn from horse dung, or sucked in with the sediment of the stale swipes which form the sentimental staple of their song. Mere tuneful tiddliewinkers these, who when not raucously raving about wise old women — who would seem to have been sought and found in Wexford-street— are droning out by the yard the most damnable drivel about the murderously maddening mono-tony of the backblocks, or the stinking-squalor of the city slums. They one and all seem to suffer either from hippomania or dipsomania ; the burden of their lyrical lucubrations is "Booze, booze, beautiful booze," for which they, seem to live, and of which the majority appear destined to die.
If these "poets" are not much admired by the public they much admire each other, pal poetaster praising poetaster pal on the Red Page or, better still, in some pub parlor, between big bites of a free counter lunch and greedy gulps of their everlasting eleemosynary elixir, benevolent beer. These hungry Toothites and thirsty Tooheyites believe them selves to be inspired ; and so they are, some of them, for the most part of the time — with bad booze. They call themselves Bohemians, and so they are, of the brazen-faced, bounder breed. Those who can't stand the sight, sound or smell of them, add won't supply them with small silver coins wherewith to wet their tuneful tonsils with tanglefoot, are the subjects of the sublime scorn of these snakejuice stickers, whose breath is worse than their bark or bite These sons of swankified song when, like those of Belial, blown with booze, believe themselves to be the victims of a common conspiracy; society does not appreciate them ; they are not understood ; and if it were not for the "Bulletin" their poetry would find its way to the pork purveyor, where ultimately, in printed form, it does find its only proper place - as surrounding for succulent sausages; Of course, all this is only the brutal blasphemy of a jealous mind, incapable of soaring into the empyrean with these boozy "Bulletin: bards, whose bardic badges are grog-blossoms and beer bungs.
In regard to sculpture— such of it, at any rate, as has afflicted the sight of Sydney— it more resembles the plastic art of the diurnal dough-puncher, or that of the Dago plaster-of-paris manipulator than that of Phidias or Praxiteles. Australian sculpture does not aim so much at making the marble speak and breathe with divine though dumb eloquence as at making stones grin like ghouls in pain. Take the carvings on the Pitt-street "fakade" of the Post Office as an example. These monstrous chisellings were pronounced by the late Sir Frederick Leighton, President of the Royal Academy (who at the invitation of Sir Frederick Matthew Durley studied them from photographs), as gross caricatures of art, and a disfigurement of the front of a beautiful building. An Italian named Sani, who, judged by his work as a sandstone scraper, would be more appropriately named Insane, was guilty of these gruesome atrocities. That is one sin less to the native stone-chippers, who, had they had the chance of doing better, would probably have done worse, if that were possible.
Companion caricatures of dead men are to be found in numerous niches on the facades of the Lands Department building. They are sup-posed to be sculptural similitudes of men, whose names few remember, and whose demise still fewer regret — Parliamentary and departmental land-jobbers, explorers of the arid interior, as parched as their own thirsty throttles, which most of them died in the vain attempt to adequately irrigate. They look like so many dough dummies baked brown in the sun: preposterous brown brick-pug pigmies, caricatures in clay, clothed in cast-iron coats and corrugated iron combinations, with countenances, cut in wood, terribly contorted as with internal torture, or distorted with maniacal grimaces copied off "cranks" at Callan Park. Look, too, at the damnable brazen dummy doing duty for Dalley in Hyde Park. The poor patriot politician - the hero of the Soudan Contingent — looks as disconsolate as the Soudan donkey would have done had he, poor brute, been encased in similar corrugated iron coat and galvanized iron breeches. Such is native sculpture under the Southern Cross.
If this is the nature of native Australian sculptural skill, there is little better to show in the imported article. That, like the local poetry and drama, is blighted by the black ban of Botany Bay. The Sydney community, though it has survived the convict curse, still suffers from its effects, in art even more than in morals. In art, as in nearly every other avenue of sentimental activity, the convict taint survives. How can a community be said to be free, of the poisonous prison taint when it commemorates by a costly monument the first foundation of the State as a Convict Colony. The principal and most costly public monument in Sydney, and indeed in Australia, is that of Captain Phillip, the commander of the First Fleet, and the Founder of Felonry in Australia. It stands in the most prominent position, and on the most beautiful site in Australia —dominating the waters of Port Jackson from the height of the Botanic Gardens. Beside this costly colossal statue, those of Captain Cook, Governor Bourke and Dr. Long, the real founders and regenerators of the colony, sink into insignificance. While a half-bred German renegade Jew, who came out here as chief of the coffles of chained convicts of the First Fleet, has his infamous phizog and office thus perpetuated in marble and bronze, no monument recalls the generous services of self-sacrifice and devotion rendered by Lachlan Macquarie in redeeming the ancestors of our "First Families" from the degradation and despair of the damnable and damning convict system. The national artistic instinct of Australia is convict, since it prefers to perpetuate the memory of its first boss jailer, and leaves uncommemorated by monument, "storied urn, or animated bust" the life and work of Lachlan Macquarie, the man who began the great work of Australia's social emancipation from the convict ban, and its moral redemption from the curse of the felonry planted here by Phillip. Such is the gratitude of the Australian aristocracy, whose ancestors came out here in the First Fleet in charge of a renegade German-Jew Captain, the Chief Convict Ganger. An art that seeks its highest expression in commemorating convictism, is worthy of its birth and bringing up— the Old Bailey and Botany Bay. The transportine drama— the blood and thunder melodrama from the Surrey side of the Thames — seems to have been transported to Australia along with the founders of our First Families in the First and Second Fleets.
The father of the Australian drama was a convict, to whom is attributed — erroneously no doubt— the author ship of the oft-quoted prologue recited at the first dramatic performance given in Sydney. Appropriately enough, the first convict comedy, composed by convicts and played by convicts, was performed in prison — the debtors' room of old Sydney Gaol being turned into a temporary theatre for the purpose. It was on this occasion that Barrington, the notorious pickpocket, or some other convict, had the convict cheek to step forward, and recite to his convict chums, amid the jeers and cheers of the rum-soaked convict gangers and officers and soldiers of the infamous New South Wales Corps — the military convict guard — the lines in which occur the following : —
From distant climes, o'er widespread seas we come,
Though not with much 'eclat,' or beat of drum ;
True patriots all, for be it understood,
We left our country for our country's good.
No private views disgrac'd our generous zeal,
What urg'd our travels was our country's weal ;
And none will doubt but that our emination.
Has proved most useful to the British nation.
This felon fellow Barrington was the worthy progenitor of the Australian drama. He was at once a convict and a Christian; a pickpocket and a pietist; a spy and a saint; a sneak and a snufflebuster; and last, but not least, among this polyglot paragon's qualifications for his position as prince of prison pimps, he was a preacher of the Gospel. From picking pockets he took to pulpit-punching, and from rifling pocket-books turned to expounding that best of all books, the Blessed Bible. As might be expected, this holy old log and howling hypocrite prospered exceedingly. By pimping and spying,, informing and betraying, he wormed his way into the good graces of his keepers; did their dirty work well; helped many a poor wretch to the triangles and gallows, and was fin-ally made a convict constable, becoming later on Chief Constable at Parramatta, where he died blind drunk in the full odor of sanctity, which in those days was the odor of rum. Barrington was the first convict in whose favor a warrant of freedom or emancipation was granted. How he gained this, and his grade as a convict ganger over his co-convicts the official convict chronicles of New South Wales throw a luminous light.
Writing on July 17, 1791, on board the convict ship Discovery, en route to Botany Bay, and then revictualling at Simons Bay, Cape of Good Hope, Convict Governor Phillip Gidley King, in a letter to Under-Secretary, of State Nepean, in London, among other convict communications, makes the following concise statement concerning the pious conduct of the convicted swell mobsman and pickpocket Barrington : "The convicts on board the different ships have behaved extremely well, and Mr. Barrington is now a religious convert. He performs service, and gives a sermon twice on Sundays." "Per-forms service" is a singularly appropriate expression to apply to the pious pulpiteering performances aboard a convict ship of the future father of the Australian drama. But let us see to what pulpit-punching and prison-pimping brought this pocket-picking preacher about ten years later. In the Historical Records of New South Wales is to be found the following extract from "Saunders' News Letter" of October 8, 1802, concerning the godly George Barrington The celebrated Barrington has been deprived of his office of high constable, having given himself up latterly to excessive drinking. He is, however very comfortably settled in the town of Parramatta, adjoining to which he possesses two farms ; and in consideration of services rendered to the colony by his official activity and reformation, the Government allows him £50 annually for life, and four servants free of wages. Then, as now, gospel-grinding and grog-guzzling went together; then, as now, a thief and a boozer, provided he approved himself as a holy hypocrite, could rank respectably and draw a pension while sweating his fellow convicts. It was under such Christian civilized auspices as these that the Australian drama was born.
And what a degraded drama it is. Cradled in convictism, fostered in felonry, and lapped in lust and lechery, there is no room for surprise that the Australian stage is what it is, a kaleidoscope of murderous crime, foul fornication, and hideous hypocrisy. What plays please the patrons of the Australian stage? Most certainly not those of Shakespeare. George Rignold and his company could not make a living at representing the healthy, robust heroes and lovely, lovable heroines of the Divine William. The Broughs had to pack up and begone, because they could not, or not, give the carnivorous gods blithe dress circle and stalls, as well as those of the gallery, enough "blood and beef," and failed to re-present the filthy fornications of flash wastrels and whores, so popular with the pious play-goers of, Sydney. Where Rignold, the Broughs, and other legitimate artists failed, there could be little hope for minor stars, although of "purest ray serene." What's wanted on the steak-and-oyster-and-stout sustained stage of this celestial and cultured city of Sydney are plays where convicts bash put the brains of their warders with blue-metal-breakers, and convicts crack each other's craniums with pickaxes.
After "The Term of His Natural Life," next in popularity ranks "Robbery Under Arms," a tale of bushrangers, in which the gold-robber and police murderer is glorified and gloated over ; where bullets and blackfellows fly and flit about the stage ; and realism is lent to the simulated scene by the natural dung-drop-ping performances of a live cab or cart horse. He is usually ridden by a bashful native virgin, Kate Kelly, of some forty summers, whose sole part in the drama seems to be to incite and regulate the intestinal emotions of her purging prad. By graceful, well-timed whip taps on her gallant cart-horse's wind-bound flanks, she constrains the well-drilled steed to do his duty, which he does by turning himself stern foremost, and performing his part in full face of the enraptured audience with most realistic effect. If it isn't Holloway harrowing the souls of the patriotic Australians with scenes from "His Natural," or Alfred Dam-pier reciting "Little Jim" during an interlude in "Robbery Under" (when-ever the cart horse has come on too costive to properly play his part), it's that delirious delineator of gold field manners and morality, George Darrell, whom the "gods and ghouls" delight to honor. Of Bland Holt and Maggie Moore, the most and worst that can be said of them is that they have given their in no-sense critical clients precisely what pleases them, and what their clients pay to see, in as decent a form as the historic histrionic instincts of their clients can understand or tolerate. The part of play purifier and stage sweetener is not a popular or pleasant one in Sanctimonious Sydney, Moral Melbourne, Holy Adelaide, Pious Perth, or Blessed Brisbane.
The plays which the average play-goers of Australia, delight to honor with their pious patronage are such as 'The Sign of the Cross,' Wilson Barrett's blasphemous and bestial adaptation of "Quo Vadis,: in which a lusty Pagan, with the physical pro-portions of & stallion and the passions of a mad bull, attempts to ravish a Christian maiden in the chiaroscuro of stage twilight. This Pagan hero, Marcus, is only restrained from outraging the Christian maiden, Marcia, by an earth-quake; and he only consents to cool his concupiscent coppers at the sign of a little white wooden cross flourished in his face by the virgin whose virtue can only be preserved by means of an earthquake! So, too, does sanctimonious Sydney revel in the "Sorrows of Satan," the pranks of "Barabbas"; and the inanities of "The Eternal City," and other foul conceptions of that filthy-minded, scribbling slut and literary larrikiness, Marie Corelli. Titillating touches of that morbidly moral madman and physiological freak. Tolstoi, as afforded in the "Kreutzer Sonata," or "The Resurrection," in which feebleness of flesh and furious fornication fight to a finish, are morsels of sweet savor to these moral monsters who would land did howl with indignation at the Rev. George Walters' "Joseph of Canaan," which dealt decently with the indecencies of Potiphar's wife in regard to Joseph, so crudely de-scribed in the blessed Bible. These sensitive souls who exclaim with well-simulated shrieks of pious horror against the portrayal of the pornographic pranks of Potiphar's prurient spouse, will revel in such red-hot, raw rortiness as that de-lineated in that dirty thing of "double entendres," the dramatised, version of Hall Caine's concupiscent "Christian." John Storm, gone balmy with the love and lust of the lusty, lustful, lovable Glory Quayle, are precisely a pair of concupiscent cranks, to leach young girls how to become moral cockchafers, who may ruin men without ruining themselves.
Failing such sexually sweet and sentimentally moral melodrama, the stage-struck saints of Sydney will, at a pious pinch, take on a Cockney comedy, played by bulbous-breasted, broad-buttocked, bare-legged, bawdy, bounding, boozy beauties, whose art consists in show-ing their artlessness in "the altogether," and their "naiveté" in the nude. A gang of groggy "Gaiety Girls;" a Grace Palotta, with the squawky voice of a Polish Jewess from Petticoat-lane ; a Carrie Moore, with the figure of a skeleton and the bones of an anatomical specimen, hung about with "breach of promise: diamonds diddled from a drunken dupe of a millionaire's mug heir ; or even a Mdlle. Vulcana, with the figure of a Hercules and the strength of a Sampson, stretching her pectoral and abdominal ports in painful contortions on the stage, will suffice to satisfy the aesthetic tastes and cultured cravings of Sydney playgoers for the refined and elevating drama; Refined rot ! The level of dramatic taste and criticism in Sydney to-day is where it was in the convict days of a hundred years ago— on the level of the pigstye in art, and that of the prison in morals. Managers of the Sydney stage know their patrons and the correctness of their cultivated tastes, and the fine sentiments prompting those beautiful moral manifestations which mark their appreciation of such chaste, "divinely-inspired" dramas as "The Sign of the Cross;" which make a Marie Corelli a maiden's monitor; and accept Mdlle. Vulcana a type of female modesty, and womanly beauty. In the face of such a corrupted taste, in which the theatrical stage seems to be confounded with the criminal scaffold, is it any wonder that Australian art is what it is and where it is, or that Australian artists are what they are, in the main, a lot of delirious derelict decadents? JOHN NORTON. AUSTRALIAN ART AND ARTISTS. (1904, February 28). Truth (Sydney, NSW : 1894 - 1954), p. 1. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article167893154
Victor J. Daley is the journalist who has issued a writ against John Norton for an alleged libel published in Truth. MAINLY ABOUT PEOPLE. (1904, March 19). The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney, NSW : 1900 - 1919), p. 9. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119437292
THE LAST DAYS OF “SYDNEY PUNCH”
(BY V. J. D.)
Five and twenty years ago (years that the locust hath eaten) Sydney was in a sort' of transition stage. The members of the old Cabbage-tree Mob had, for the most part, died out, or gone home to purge and live cleanly, A few picturesque survivals still haunted the law courts and the 'bars of the leading hotels; but the streets knew them no more as they were in the days of their roistering glory.
The Cafe Wein and kindred dens of amorous orgie, in which Bacchus and Venus sat up till all hours of the night, clinking glasses and drinking gaily together, were dark and silent. A new race of virtuous legislators had closed the doors of them with a bang of disgust. The steam trams — those iron monsters vomiting black smoke and grit— had but recently come to roar down the familiar noises of old-fashioned traffic. But in all other ways Sydney was a pleasant abiding-place in those old days, when there were fewer people, but a greater number of genial faces to be seen in her narrow streets,.
Even now, when so much is changed, when so many old landmarks have disappeared, and so many kindly faces are seen no more, Sydney-is still called the homely city, by visitors from other States and countries. This quaint suggestion of sociability— this charm of homeliness has, I fancy, its origin in the narrowness, and crookedness, and delightful anyhowness of her streets. Sydney is almost entirely a natural growth — a ganglion formed by bullock-tracks, and bridle-tracks, and footpaths twisting down to and striking at all manner of slopes and curves,- a few main, thoroughfares laid out with as near an approach to straightness and regularity as could be expected from surveyors in the Rum Era. If clear-eyed, sober Science had been in existense to take the work in hand, the capital of New South Wales would be, as far as possible, a chessboard city like Adelaide — rectilinear, cold, without charm. As it is, I imagine that the easy, unaffected way in which her streets, in various stages of sobriety, some of them staggering down hill, others lurching suddenly from around corners, meet each other like friends at a fair, has reacted upon the population to such an extent that the total result is what visitors call homeliness. There ; is another charm peculiar to Sydney— the charm of surprise. You never know, whom you may run across, or what adventure may be waiting for you around any one of a score of corners. It is impossible to live long in a city built after this fashion without beginning to feel homely and sociable.
If that is the case now, you of the younger generation may imagine what Sydney was like a quarter of a century ago (alas! that I should have to write like a patriarch!), when her ways were not uncomfortably crowded, and friends could hail each other across the street, and meet in the middle of it without fear of being run over by passing trams. Then two friends could not walk a dozen yards together without, encountering a third and a fourth, and celebrating the event in the pleasant fashion of the period. Everybody about town seemed -to know, and like, everybody else in those. days. There were, of course, some of them who did not like each other; but I think that, on the; whole, there was more geniality on the street than there is now. I believe also that there was more real camaraderie amongst musicians, artists, pressmen, and even actors than there is at the present day. Possibly this is as because' they were all young — ' in spirit if not In years — and doing fairly well without making slaves of themselves. There were not so many of them, even in proportion to the population, as there are now, and they could afford time to meet each other, and talk 'shop,' and) smoke and drink a little, and curse the Philistines. Moreover, they were all in love with Art for her own sake, and not' for the fine eyes of her casket. It was as pleasant to know as it is curious to remember, that all of them — actors, painters, musicians, writers— were interested in each other's work, and could criticise it in a spirited and even Intelligent manner. I do not see any. such mutual , understanding and good-will amongst their successors. . Probably tine increase of competition, and the ceaseless rush of trams, and the desire to make money quickly, and go to London and become famous, and even (in the case of the elder men) the haggard dread of dying old and poor, may account for this difference of attitude. I darkly suspect, however, that the real cause of 'tine difference is to be found in difference of character. The new men are not interested in the productions of workers in other branches of Art, because they had time nor taste for anything outside their own little artistic kail-yards.
It was a good time five-and-twenty years ago. Jack Delaney was then a young man, with large blue-grey eyes that gazed afar into the glorious musical future. Dear old 'Daddy' Halliwell was then in his prime. With his glasses on his nose, his tall hat set well back on his head, his long hair falling upon his shoulders, his portly figure and his beaming smile he looked, as he sailed down the street, like a glad German professor on his way to tell his friends that he had made a fresh discovery in connection with the dative case, or had found a new kind- of.beetle. Frank Hutchinson — black-haired (those were the days of the Barmecides), and looking Like a Spanish hidalgo — was writing admirable essayettes for the Press. Dan O'Connor was a 'noticeable man with large grey eyes,' but not then the Only Orator. David Buchanan, who paid a memorable visit to Carlyle, was the Australian orator. Archbishop Vaughan, looking like a prelate in an illuminated cathedral -window, was bestowing benedictions at St. Mary's with a white aristocratic hand. Parkes stalked through the corridors of Parliament House — white-maned, gigantic, his too big with fate. Rignold, with a springy step and a flashing eye, and the broad back of him overrun with the yellow leopards of England, was storming Harfleur at the Theatre Royal every night. Bland Holt was playing just as usual, and looking, almost as young as he does now. Goodman hadn't a grey hair In his head. Howard Vernon was leader of the opposition in a little parliament we used to hold in an upper room in what was then Eastway’s Hotel. But let the curtain fall. The figures begin to crowd the stage.
It was in those days that 'Sydney Punch' was making its final appearances, and cracking its cheery little tea party jokes in a thin, piping voice to an audience even thinner. It had done good work in its day. Even in Its old age there were people who swore by it. But they luu, were uiu. xi wtts- caajginus» -cum xiiaue allowances. When it attacked public men its satire was like shampooing. The new generation wanted to see them flayed. . Some of the brightest intellects of the time and place contributed to its columns.' W. B. Dalley was amongst the number, and there was a legend to the effect that Jack Want, K.C., had written some airy trifles in the shape of verse for its pages on one or two occasions; but the evidence to that effect was not conclusive. Kendall wrote for it now and then, and so did Henry Halloran, who was called by a select circle of friends and admirers the Laureate of New South Wales. He was subsequently made a C.M;G., and it' served him right. Bat these distinguished contributors dropped off one by one. The day of 'Punch' was past. A cynical generation had arisen that refused to be amused by the obvious jest; -a 'generation that would not laugh at the wholesome cellar-flap humour that was good enough 'for its fathers; a generation that was not satisfied with Attic salt, but pleas for Cayenne pepper. 'Punch' was too good-natured to give them this— even If it had any in stock. And so it staggered cheerily and affably down the road to the tomb.
There was, however, a flicker of what looked like new life before the end came. --itr.-;:.fei— ? became the owner of the paper. His story in' connection with it was both humorous knipathetic. When he was a young man in a London bank he sent -a Joke (his own word) to London 'Punch.' It (the joke) -was about' the sea breeze fluttering the skirts of the girls on the sands at Margate and revealing their ankles ..., x- ' — never forget this illustrious fact, and when, after more than a score of years had passed by; 'aha: he had acquired a modest competency by banking pursuits in Queensland, he learnt .. that 'Sydney Punch' was for sale, he knew that his opportunity had arrived. - He was an amiable little man, with china-blue eyes, and a cockatoo top-hat, and an ever-ready smile. Of course, the first thing he did was to rearrange 'Punch' as nearly as possible after the pattern of its prototype, to which he had been a contributor. A meeting of artists and waiters was held every Saturday night in the little office In Castlereagh-street, somewhere near where George Robertson and Company have their. bookshop at the present time. The ostensible reason of these, meetings was the discussion of the cartoon for the coming week. ?
Nine or ten of us, on an average, used to attend and sit in a room about eight feet Square discussing and smoking— we could hardly See each -other through the smoke— and drinking. Mr. B ? was not much of a success as an editor. from a financial point of view; but I have never seen an editor who was so popular with his staff. He did the thing handsomely. A, bottle of whisky and a bottle -f brandy were always on the table; also a stack of bottles of soda water and lemonade, a box of cigars, and for those who preferred them, clean churchwarden-pipes and a jar of tobacco. We used to talk about everything but the cartoon. Alfred Clint, the artist— a didactic little wag— and Monty Scott, with his military air and his long yellow moustache; and Wesley Caddy, looking like a cross between De Quincey and Deniehy; and Hamblin, the fat and rosy subeditor of a daily paper; and Tennyson Smith, with his hair parted beautifully in the middle; and Ward, the impassioned, fair-haired young poet, who is now, alas! a J.P. In Bombala; and the redoubtable Richmond Thatcher— when he could get away for a few moments from his bizarre hotel in the same street — and others whose names I have forgotten, were present at these meetings.
We talked better than we wrote or drew— which is; perhaps not saying much. Anyhow our combined wit and humour failed to keep. 'Punch' alive, indeed, there were , ill-natured people who said that, as a combination we were all that was necessary to give the poor little paper its coup de grace. There were burning questions, and vital, struggles, and earth-shaking movements then, as there are now, but to us they were simply subjects for small pictures, or rhymes, or painfully humorous little articles. None of us knew much about these things— the editor least of all. But he had a cocksure way of looking at you, like a clever bird, that would -make you believe, until you knew him, that he was up to all the moves in politics, and everything else -worth troubling about.
It is all over now. 'Punch' Is dead. Mr. B _ , when I last saw him, many years ago, was travelling with samples of machine oil; Thatcher is dead, Caddy is dead, Monty Scott is dead. I don't know what became of the others. Ward is, as I said before, a J.P., and— alas! THE LAST DAYS OF "SYDNEY PUNCH." (1904, April 23). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 4 (EVENING NEWS SUPPLEMENT). Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article113906911
Lovers.
(Creeve Roe, in the Bulletin.)
'Lucky is she— and there are such— who learn again and again the lesson (of love), taking a fresh charm from each fresh teacher.' — Mauy Leith, in a Sydney paper.
Said the maiden : ' In my heart
Love alone
Has a throne —
Ah, the lovers I have known !
'Sometimes in the night I think
Of old days,
Old love-plays,
And the pleasant primrose ways.
' Willie was a pretty boy,
Kind, but quiet ,
'Too polite— ' . . -' '
Seemed to think that I would bite.
' Bashful, too, was Ferdinand ;
Kissed my hand,
I could stand
Little of dear Ferdinand.
'Tom he had a merry- wit,
Made me laugh
With his chaff
Tom was not too slow by half.
' Frederick was better fun ;
Frederick
Kissed me quick.
But not half so quick as Dick.
' Dick, he was a lover grand
Tried to eat
Me complete ;
It was rough, but it was sweet.
' He would hug me hard and fierce,
Like a bear,
I declare,
And make hay of my poor hair.
' Algernon, he had a rare
Clinging kiss,
Charged with bliss,
Verging on paralysis.
' Tom and Fred have married since
Ugly wives ;
Fate contrives .
Thus that nice men wreck their lives.
' Bashful Willie blushing hard,
So they say,
Ran away
With his neighbor's wife one day.
'Dick turned good— at Venus now
Would not wink,
And I think
Ferdinand expired of drink.
'They have gone, but in my heart
Love alone
Has a throne
All, the lovers I have known ! '
Lovers. (1904, August 27). The Grenfell Record and Lachlan District Advertiser (NSW : 1876 - 1951), p. 1. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article115620689
THE MUMMER.
In winter and in summer.
Raw cold or reeking heat,
A strange weird little mummer
Comes prancing up our street.
Suburban streets he chooses
In which to swell his chest,
For there the comic muse is
Appreciated best.
The folk here seem to love him,
This sprightly little clown ;
From balconies above hint
Small silver coins rain down.
He twists and turns and prances,
And at himself he cheers,
And all the time he dances,
He winks and laughs and leers.
He sings a comic ditty,
And fiddles up the tune —
A strange sight of the city
Is this sad Pantaloon.
His age must be past dating,
This open-air Comique,
For as he goes gyrating
You hear his sinews creak.
You also hear the creaking
Of his old played out wits,
And all the time he's speaking
You fear he'll fail to bits.
' Who is that spectre sprightly ?'
I asked a man, with speed
The man replied politely
' The ghost of G. H. Reid.'
— Creeve Roe in Newsletter. THE MUMMER. (1905, June 17). The Clipper (Hobart, Tas. : 1893 - 1909), p. 1. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article83631432
VICTOR J. DALEY.
Victor James Daley, best known of Australian poets, and now unhappily lying very ill with a lung trouble, years ago was a corresponding clerk for Harris, Scarfe & Co. in Adelaide. His first verses were called, "Love, Fame, and Death" and told how the three called at the house of a young man, and invited him to choose between them. He chose Death, “I don't know why," says Daley, "unless his liver was out of order."
The verses were printed in "The Star," a little publication with a circulation of about 300, and edited by Allerdale Grainger, late Agent-General for S.A.
A. G. Stephens, in "Steele Rudd's Magazine" for May, retells a story of one of Daley's many "hard-up" days. Traill was in the editorial chair of the Sydney '"Bulletin," then in its early days, and Harold Grey and Victor Daley were two of its chief contributors. Grey was a brilliant topical verse writer. His real name was Theodore Emile Argles, and he was the son of an Old Bailey lawyer, and a French actress.
The story, as told in Daley's own language, is this: "Grey and I were very hard up one week, and Traill had emphatically stopped credit until something in the shape of work was forthcoming. It was a bitter bad situation. I met Grey looking very cheerless one morning, and we adjourned to the sitting-room of a little public-house in Pitt-street for discussion. Grey brooded for a long time, then foe said, 'You'll have to die!' And he explained: 'We cannot touch Traill unless we touch his emotions.' (Traill was a man of emotions) 'If we kill you, he will surely pay up for the funeral expenses. He ought to make it £5 at least. We will try it. You wait here.' "Grey went off. He (went into Traill's office at the Bulletin with a face of gloom and a dishevelled tie, speechless. Traill was ready with upbraiding, but Grey's attitude took him aback. There was no appeal. No request of the kind he expected. Grey stood in silence, and something that appeared to be a sob heaved his chest. Presently Traill looked up, and scented something unusual. "What's the matter?" says he. (Another sob from Grey.) 'What is the matter, man?' says Traill. (Another sob from Grey.} 'Confound you! What is the matter with you. What are you standing there for?' says Traill. ‘Oh! Poor Daley!' says Grey, 'poor, poor, poor Daley!' 'Daley!' says Traill. 'What about him?'
'He’s dead,’ says Grey, with an eruption of sobs. ‘Dead!’says Traill, ‘Good God, you don’t say. How did it happen?’ ‘I-I don't know exactly,’ says Grey, ‘something mysterious—very sudden—very fatal. I don't know what to do, it has broken me all up. . I want you to come out and see him.' "'I can't go now,' says Traill, 'but I will come later. Dear me! Daley dead—I am very sorry—very very sorry!' " 'Yes,' says Grey, 'he was a good fellow, good fellow. (Sobs.) I don't know what we will do. I will have to make arrangements with the undertaker. There is no money. I suppose I can manage it.' " 'Oh!' says Traill, 'you had better get some downstairs. Here, I will give you a note. How much do you think you will want?'
" 'Well,' says Grey, 'perhaps £5 would do. Only a Cheap funeral, no luxury. Daley never liked luxury—'he hated display.'' 'Certainly,' says Traill, 'here you are!' and Grey went downstairs with the precious order. While he was downstairs I came up. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my part. As I sat waiting in the little public-house it had been borne in upon me that Grey and I had a very fine scheme, and that there was a death in it, but the more I thought about it in Grey's absence, the more I believed that it was Grey who was to die, and I who was to raise the wind to bury him. Presently I became convinced it really was so. So I went round with the memory of a rehearsed part strong upon me, and staggered into Traill's office with all the outward and visible signs of grief. " 'Poor Grey, poor Grey,' says I. " 'Good God!' says Traill, 'it's Daley! Why, man, Grey said you were dead!'' " 'No, no,' I said, 'it's Grey that's dead. Poor Grey! Poor Grey! He died very suddenly—very suddenly last night. Do you thank you can give me some money for the funereal? None at all in the house. About £5 would do. Poor, poor Grey!'
"Then Traill smelt a rat, and followed the scent until he had found out the plot. We never got the £ 5. But when Traill recovered himself he thought it was such a good story that we were taken into favor again and things went on swimmingly."
Grey once remarked to Daley, "I don't, care what they say of me when I’m gone as long as ; they don’t say, 'He was no man’s enemy but his own.'." And that was precisely what they did say. LITERARY CHAT. (1905, June 21). Critic (Adelaide, SA : 1897-1924), p. 6. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article211407924
THE CALL OF THE CITY.
For the Bulletin.
There is a saying of renown—
God made the country, man the town.
Well, everybody to his trade
But man likes best the thing he made
The town has little space to spare;
The country has both space and air;
The town's confined, the country free
Yet, spite of all, the town for me.
For when the hills' are grey and night
is falling,
And the winds sigh drearily,
I hear the city calling, calling, calling,
With a voice like the great sea.
I used to think I'd like to be
A hermit living lonesomely,
Apart from 'human care or ken,
Afar from the haunts of men :
Then I would read in Nature's book,
And drink clear water from the
brook,
And live a life of sweet content,
In hollow tree, or cave, or tent.
This was a dream of callow Youth
Which always overleaps the truth
And thinks, fond fool, it is the sum
Of things that are and things to
come.
But now, when youth has gone from
me,.
I crave for genial company.
For Nature wild I still have zest,
But human nature I love best.
I know that hayseed in the hair
Than grit and grime is healthier,
And that the scent of gums is far
More sweet than reek of pavement
tar.
I know, too, that the breath of lone
Is safer that the smell of wine;
I know that here my days are free—
But, all the city calls to me.
Let. Zimmerman and all his brood
Proclaim the charms of Solitude,
I'd rather walk down Hunter Street
And meet a man I like to meet.
And talk with him about old times.
And how the market is for rhymes,
Between two drinks, than told commune
Upon a mountain with the moon.
A soft wind in the gully deep
Is singing all the trees to sleep;
And in the sweet air there is balm,
And Peace is here, and here is Calm.
God knows how these I yearned to
find !
Yet I must leave them all behind.
And rise and go—come sun, come
rain —
Back to the Sorceress again.
For at the dawn or when the night
is falling,
Or at noon when shadows flee,
hear the city calling, calling,
calling
Through the long lone hours to me.
N. S. W.
—Creeve Roe. THE CALL OF THE CITY. (1905, July 11).Quorn Mercury (SA : 1895 - 1954), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article213637318
Mr. Victor J. Daley and family have been induced by a few friends to give the salubrious properties of Hornsby a trial. The Insect. (1905, August 19). The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney, NSW : 1900 - 1919), p. 13. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article114727719
VICTOR DALEY
Eastern papers report the serious illness of Victor Daley, Bulletin's' favorite bard. The poet's trouble is pulmonary, and is reckoned to be in the critical stage. As a fair sample of his work (possibly his best) we reprint below one of his favorite pieces.
A SUNSET FANTASY.
Spellbound by a sweet fantasy,
At evenglow I stand,
Beside an opaline strange sea
That rings a sunset land.
The rich lights fade out one by one,
And like a peony
Drowning in wine, the crimson sun
Sinks down in that strange sea.
His wake across the ocean floor
In a long glory lies,
Like a gold wave away to the shore
Of some sea paradise.
My dream flies after him, and I
Am in another land ;
The sun sets in another sky,
And we sit hand in hand.
Grey eyes look into mine ; such eyes
I think the angels' are—
Soft as the soft light in the skies
When shines the morning star.
And tremulous as morn, when thin
Gold lights begin to glow,
Revealing the bright soul within
As dawn the sun below.
So hand in hand, we watch the sun
Burn down the Western deeps,
Dreaming a charmed dream, as one
Who in enchantment sleeps ;
A dream of how we twain some day,
Careless of map or chart,
Will both take ship and sail away
Into the sunset's heart.
Our ship shall be of sandal built,
Like ships in old-world tales,
Carved with cunning art, and gilt,
And winged with scented sails
Of silver silk, whereon the red
Great gladioli burn,
A rainbow flag at her masthead,
A rose-flag at her stern ;
And perching on the point above
Wherefrom the pennon blows,
The figure of a flying dove
And in her beak a rose.
And from the fading land the breeze
Shall bring us blowing low,
Old odours and old mercuries,
And airs of long ago—
A melody that has no words
Of mortal speech a part.
Yet touching all the deepest chords
That tremble in the heart :
A scented song blown over sea,
As though from bowers of bloom
A wind harp in a lilac tree
Breathed music and perfume.
And we, no more with longings pale,
Will smile to hear it blow ;
I in the shadow of the sail,
You in the sunset glow.
For, with the fading land, our fond
Old fears shall all fade out.
Paled by the light of shores beyond
The dread of Death and Doubt.
And. from a gloomy cloud above.
When death his shadow flings,
The spirit of Immortal Love
Will Shield us with his wings.
He is the lord of dreams divine,
And lures us with his smiles
Along the splendour opaline
Unto the Blessed Isles.
Victor J. Daley.
VICTOR DALEY. (1905, August 25).Westralian Worker (Perth, WA : 1900 - 1951), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article149609288
DEATH OF MR. VICTOR DALEY.
The death took place this morning at his residence, Waitara, of Mr. Victor J. Daley, the writer of verse. Mr. Daley had not been the best of health for some time past, having been, a great sufferer from a pulmonary complaint. The remains Will be interred in Waverly Cemetery to-morrow.
At the time of his death, Victor Daley was one of the best writers of cultured verse in the world. There was music in the words that lie used, and he- -never profaned a high-class piece of work by a course idea, or a slovenly or incorrect line. He did all his literary work in Australia, but was an Irishman by birth, and in all his verses there is the soft under -note of melancholy so characteristic of Irish literature. On occasion he would tumble and play' the buffoon In the literary arena as many another man has had to do to earn bread, but in his humorous verses there is a savage grimness that speaks of the writer's contempt for the stuff he is turning out, and for the audience which demands it. Born in Armagh in 1858, Daley was between 40 end 50 years of age, and its death was due to phthisis. The end has been a long time in coming, and It is really a happy release, as his health was shattered. DEATH OF MR. VICTOR DALEY. (1905, December 29 - Friday). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article113282461
IN MEMORIAM : VICTOR DALEY
By Fred Broomfield.
In quiet Waitara, aisled all about by trees,
An Austral poet hears the distant chimes
Of Sydney City, echoing his rhymes,
Borne on the pinions of the southern breeze,
He lies there fighting 'gainst a circuit disease;
Yet shows the unbending, dauntless soul betimes,
As erst it showed itself in happier climes
When pain was absent — and the mind at ease,
Victor, we send thee greeting, true and warm,
Our thoughts are with thee at this Christmastide,
And all such words as hearten men, and cheer,
May pious hope, bravo soul amid the storm,
Uplift thy courage, in thine heart abide,
And light thine outlook on the op'ning year.
Thus X hailed my dear dead comrade on the last Tuesday of the last year by way of a post-card. His eyesight was not strong enough to scan the minute writing on the measured area of that card but on Thursday, the day of his passing, he sent me a kindly greeting. ' - Tell dear old Fred that I got his message.'
On the day I last saw him I noted on saw on the mantle-shelf a card inscribed by George Rivers-Allpress 'Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,'
'Far,' indeed, but the man held a spirit of indomitable battle to the last stage of his journey, I never hailed a braver soul In sight of that last strange, stern struggle which holds its menace of weirdest challenge 'gainst the most courageous of all earth 's mortals. And Victor grappled like one of his own dour-strengthened 'Knights of the Flame of Green' In the 'Black Valley of Strange Silence,' and won through to victory with a sweet and noble smile on his fine face.
In the words of a French lady who was to the last moment a devoted friend : 'Si vous l'aviez vu couche dans son cercueil vous auriez rcconnu do suite quo ses traits, avaient etc sculpto par un bien. grand artist q' Illingworth — qui a deja reproduit sa noble figure — et lo nom do co plus grand artist encore , est la Mort. '
I met Victor first at the house of Captain McLaughlin, ' Trianon,' in Palmer-street, Woolloomooloo. I was then but a boy, and Victor was little more. There were Sunday night gatherings in the captain's house. P. J. Holdsworth, sat and Dan O'Connor, Dr. Maurice O'Connor, J. O'Brien, Frank Hutchison, and some others, foregathered with a sprinkling of youngsters, P. E. Quinn, W. P. Crick and myself, as mere specks in a crowd which filled the captain's tiny parlour, and talked literature and drank claret out of long, thin-wired Parisian glasses. Daley was there with large emphasis — young, handsome, wearing sidewhiskers, and the tiniest, downy moustache imaginable. Little more than a boy himself, he infused youth into the weary souls of greybeards. That was Victor Daley's secret. He died a youth, because he was a true poet, for poetry is not always the bubbling issue of fabled and famed Parnassus Fount, it is that fount of youth that Ponce de Leon sought and never found, because it lies so near.
My first remembrance of Victor Daley is associated with Collins-street, Melbourne. It must have been about the year 1879. Some terrible catastrophe had happened in a mine at Clunes, or Creswick, or Castlemaine (some place beginning with the letter 'C!'), and pasted on the side panel of a newspaper agent's doorway in Collins-street was a sheet of a journal of the moment, possibly the Melbourne 'Punch,' containing some verses about the catastrophe, signed 'Victor Daley'. I read those versos through, and then I read them again; and knew the name of the writer by heart for ever. A. few months afterwards I met him in Sydney, and worshipped the splendour and vigour and vivacity of his genius, but came no nearer to' him than the moth to the star. However, we grew to acquaintance through correspondence, because .J. F. Archibald had the pleasant habit of referring (in quite a casual manner) from one to the other in his short notes affecting work for the newspaper.
In 1895, just ten years ago, Victor came to Sydney in a yacht, the classic and poetical name of which I forget, in company with the late Tom Durkin, the cartoonist, and Joe Brown, a journalist, and when the yacht was passed out of charter, I asked Victor to come for a while and stay with me. He lived in my family for nigh upon a year—a year in which we all learnt to love him, to admire him, to trust and to esteem him in a way which folk trust and esteem only those whom they love and admire with whole-hearted devotion.
Daley was a man of the readiest invention; the most remarkable quickness of imagination. His birthday fell on the 5th of September, and when I asked him to write his name in a book of birthday dates, he turned up an entry which read as follows :—
''September 5. 'Great Fritillary Butterfly, appears.
'O'er thee let years so gently fall,
They shall not crush one flower beneath,
As half in shade and half in sun,
This world along its path advances,
May time side the sun's upon
Be all that o'er shall meet thy glances.' Thomas Moore.
On the blank page opposite the national Irish poet's musical lines the Irish-Australian poet wrote : — 'A day of wishes, this, for me! So, for your wife and children three, May each new birthday that goes bye, Be unto them in happy skye, ' A purplervised butterflye.' Victor J. Daley.'
Thus, out of a mere entomological note, he created a' thing of sweetness and a wish of poetic beauty.
Victor Daley was a wide road or, a deep thinker, a true Scholar. There was no branch of science or of philosophy in which he had not excursioned. He was a passionate lover of Irish Literature, and besides an intense sympathy with all the sweet, elusive poetry of the Keltic race, he ho knew thoroughly its history and Its philological values. Daley was a tremendous accumulator of historic matter (there are no other words to describe this side of him), he knew Gibbon through and through; and of the little side issues, the back lanes and by-alleys of history, as it were, there was no man in Australia his master, or oven his peer. Victor Daley had a right to sit with the philosophers as well as with the poets. In strenuous thought he stood alone as a fine strenuous thinker among all the men I have ever met.
Moreover, this man was the lover of men for what they 'were.' Victor Daley would cross the road to hail a heart's brother, even in rags, and leave the Governor of this State to do so.
He was a man with a virgin soul. I know Victor as few knew, him. We have been comrades in many an erratic enterprise, but I have never known him to do a mean thing, I have never known him to think a mean thought. To my knowledge he has performed many a splendid and generous action, and even the fruits of his brain's mintage was at the service of any brother of the pen incapacitated by sickness or trouble for an immediate moment. His reverence for women was a thing beautiful and constant. I do not believe that Victor Daley ever harboured an impure thought.
He was every woman's high-minded lover, and was a courtier to the whole sex; but he held a heart of virgin gold, and never was it for a moment dimmed by anything unworthy his manhood or of his race. In 1902 some friends gave to Victor a testimonial concert, and on the occasion it souvenir programme was inscribed to him, and its appropriate title was 'Shamrock and Waratah.' I quote from it some lines, fitting now as then :—
A Ballade for Victor Daley.
Rose-bloom and azure and a flush of gold,
Swift, vivid light that o'er the margin gleams
A radiant vision of the Days of Old — And Daley dreams.
A sheen of sapphire and a voice of praise,
A subtle movement as of seraph's 'wings,
A glimpse of Eden from these leaden days,
When Daley sings.
A hush expectant in the aureoled throng,
'Mong those who speed that car von boat away,
And pray their gods to do the bard no wrong,
Who will not stay.
My Prince, I write with passion all distraught ;
My stirrup-cup against the shadow gleams —
No wrongs mayhap, but all are rights me thought,
While Daley dreams.'
FRED. J. BROOM/FIELD.
IN MEMORIAM: VICTOR DALEY (1906, January 4). The Catholic Press (Sydney, NSW : 1895 - 1942), p. 18. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article104907303
TOM DURKIN, the black-and-white artist, is out of Melbourne Hospital after undergoing a serious operation, and is now slowly recovering his strength. Durkin, who has forsaken black-and white art for mechanics, has two or three important inventions in hand, which have attracted a great deal of attention, and promise to pan out well for the inventor. PEOPLE WE KNOW (1902, February 6).Punch (Melbourne, Vic. : 1900 - 1918; 1925), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article175391479
DEATH OF TOM DURKIN.
Regret will be felt by many personal friends and by admirers of a clever artist, at the announcement of the death of Mr. Thomas Coleman Durkin, popularly known as 'Tom Durkin’, which occurred on Tuesday at his mother's residence, 55 North-road, Newport (says a Melbourne paper). The late Mr. Durkin, who was 49 years of age, was for many years identified with the Sydney 'Bulletin,' and with other journals, in the capacity of cartoonist and sketcher, his work being marked by considerable strength and individuality. DEATH OF TOM DURKIN. (1902, May 2).Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 7. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article114123680
Here and There.
[BY " WANDERER."]
Mr Thomas Durkin, for some time on Melbourne Punch and Sydney Bulletin, of died at his mother's, residence, Newport, on Tuesday last, at the early age of 49.
"Tom," as he was familiarly termed, was a Newport boy, and a born artist. His first effort at cartoons was on a paper printed in the Chronicle office, is entitled The Trumpeter. "Tom" was editor, artist, collector, runner and "devil" of The Trumpeter, and most of his pictures or cartoons were life like, witty and immensely funny-displaying great ability as a promising artist. '"Tom " was but a boy in the days I am writing about--and a big hearted, jolly and respectful boy he was to those coming in contact with him.
Years afterwards he blossomed into a really "tip top" man at his profession, and was engaged on Melbourne Punch, Sydney Bulletin, and received an engagement by wire two years ago from the proprietor of Black White in London, an engagement which poor "Tom" never fulfilled, owing, it is said, to his own folly. "Tom" never could keep money, his heart was too big for his means-he was generous to a fault. We sojourn for one short day or two,' And all the gain we get is grief and woe, And then leaving life'a problems all unsolved -: And harassed by regrets, we have to go. Here and There. (1902, May 3). Williamstown Chronicle (Vic. : 1856 - 1954), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article69669844
I suppose the news of Tom Durkin's death was a great surprise to the thousands in Australia to whom he had made his name familiar, but he had long been ailing and the end was not unexpected amongst his more intimate friends. Of late, Durkin has done little cartooning, but had devoted himself to his inventions, several of which he had in hand. Tom had a genius for mechanics, and a novel weighbridge of his devising promises to be a big thing. Durkin was of the old school of black-and-white workers, and now Carrington, of the Australasian. is the only representative of that school left. Durkin succeeded where Carrington failed in keeping himself up to date, and readily adapted his work to the process of reproduction on zinc. In fact, he learnt the business, and was rather a good etcher. When he really tried Tom Durkin could turn out an excellent cartoon; he had what is lacking in his successor on the Bulletin, a strong individuality, and very often his cartoons hit home. With an art training Tom might have been a brilliant cartooner and caricaturist. He drew at one time or another for all the humorous papers of Australia, but for years he was afflicted—probably with the ailment that killed him— a malignant growth on the liver. Durkin was operated on at the Melb. Hospital, it was thought successfully, but the disease developed again almost immediately, and he passed away at his mother's house in Newport on the 28th of last month. PERSONAL GOSSIP. (1902, May 10).Critic (Adelaide, SA : 1897-1924), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212150803
Somebody says in a paragraph in THE CRITIC, May 17, that the late Tom Durkin made almost his first, if not his first, start as a cartoonist on Mudgee Haynes' weekly in Sydney 19 years ago. Quite wrong. Durkin had been drawing and cartooning for ten years at that time. Durkin's very first excursion into journalism was when he ran a wild and woolly little local paper of his own at Williamstown, probably 30 years ago. Durkin was canvasser, editor, and artist. He then illustrated a Melbourne weekly called The Tomahawk, I believe, after which he did work for Punch before going to Sydney.
Not long after his return he illustrated Melbourne Life, and later he and Dyson started The Ant, on which Durkin did some of his best and some of his worst work. Durkin's artistic experiences on The Tomahawk were rather amusing. The proprietor owned a lot of engraving blocks with a V shaped flaw in them, and as the cartoons were to be engraved on these, all the pictures had to be arranged so as to work round the flaws. The result was a unique collection of cartoons.
Tom was a jeweller's engraver and die-sinker by trade, and the most hideous experience of his eventful life happened while he was working at his trade. He saw a workman fall in a narrow passage while carrying two glass jars of strong sulphuric acid, the jars broke, and the man was bathed in the fluid, with the result that the flesh was burned off his bones almost immediately, Durkin and another lifted the man into a bath of water in ignorance of the fact that the application of water only makes sulphuric acid bum more fiercely. The end of that poor wretch was too hideous for description. I once saw Durkin taken violently ill when telling of the incident long years after. No Title (1902, May 24). Critic (Adelaide, SA : 1897-1924), p. 6. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212150969
Death of Victor Daley
"Victor Daley died of consumption at "Waitara," Sydney, on Friday, December 29, 1905, leaving a memory for all time amongst Australian book-lovers as the best poet after Kendall and Gordon that has yet arisen here. His muse was universal, and though it is scarcely likely that as much will ever be said of his reputation there is no cause to regret that he gave to his Australian readers gems from a mind richly stored with, an imagery, culled a little from travel, but mostly from wide and varied reading. It is a despicably narrow and inartistic sentiment which holds that Australian verse should' be confined to Australian scenes and topics. This country owes its all to a civilisation inherited from man's achievements in the old world, and: really needs the guidance of a poetic and retrospective mind to connect it with its antecedents. Thus he expresses his own need for a world-wide roaming-place for his muse:- .
"Through glacial gulfs of space' the soul must roam
.To' feel the comfort of its earthly home.
Ah, mother dear, broad-bosomed Mother Earth!
Mother of all our joy, grief, madness, mirth!
Mother of flower and fruit, of stream and sea,
We are thy children and must cling to thee.
Daley was born at Armagh, Ireland, in 1858 and from the time he contributed. the fine "In Memoriam" to Henry Kendall to one of the Sydney papers, in 1881, he wrought hard and unremittingly to endow this country .with .poetry of a standard which it will always be the local bards' joy to aspire to. Amongst his work were several noteworthy contributions to "Table Talk." His "Dawn and Dusk" poems are his best monument, with the "Sunset Fantasy'' to crown them. His last desire, to see another Christmas, was gratified, and then he passed away, his choice mind reflecting to the last the best of his hopes:
' have been dreaming all the summer day .
Of songs and sonnets carven in fine gold;
But all my dreams in darkness pass away;
The day is fading and the dusk is cold."
Australian aspirants struggling up the steeps of Parnassus have a warm corner in their hearts for Daley, who, in addition to being a poet himself, was the poet's friend.. Miss Joan Torrance, author of "'Twixt Heather- and "Wattle,'' sends us the following: -
OUR VICTOR J. DALEY.
(Poet, who died in Sydney, December 29, 1905.)
With Christmas' tide his pen has ceased;
From Earth his mind has been released.. '
Ushered is he to spheres of song,
To grander strains and pathos strong; .
Where seraphs sing undying love,
Throughout all space-around, above
And they proclaim with -sweet accord
The promise of God's sacred word.
Frail nature grieves him lost"; to sight,
A bard of such melodious flight,
"Whose song with, such sweet cadence fell '
On Austral, scenes as with a spell,
The sky, as canvas-changing light,
Relieving dark and making bright;
His brush made waves of restless sea.
Painting beauty from mystery.
On Sydney shores, beneath high rock,
Where beauteous, soaring sea-birds flock,
The muses came with glittering ray,
Alluring him with them to stray,
'Twas there the sounds of magic came,
Pulsating on the poet's brain,
A whisper said: "Arise and sing!"'
No greater gift the' gods can bring.
He sang of the sweet nightingale,
And of romantic lovers' tales,
Of flushing dawn, of moon and stars,
Of clouds of gold with silver, bars; .
Of martyrs of gone days of old,
And of flowers of forest fold.
He wove a wreath for Kendall's grave,
By Coogee's ever-changing wave.
Songs of seasons, with measured days;
Of plumaged birds with songs of praise;
Of .gullies, with their moss and fern,
Of trees and foliage well to learn;
Of youth and age, of mirth and strife,
That, interlace the human, life.
With kindly feelings lit the way,
To bring to man a better day.
Australians, see your ensign clear;
Guard well the gifted in your sphere.
Thy artists and thy writers claim
Is to uphold your country's name;
Let not tho stranger at your gate .
Say, that your sorrow came too late
For honour take a noble stand;
Help those who elevate the land.
JOAN TORRANCE.
January 1, 1906.
Our Sydney correspondent writes :-On Saturday we said good-bye to all that, remained of our much-loved poet Victor Daley, who had died most peacefully the previous day. His body was brought down from "Waitara" on Friday evening, and taken to the R.C Church of 'St. Charles'', at Waverley. The coffin, was placed on a bier in the middle of the little church with tall candles burning on each side, and there in the stillness we who loved him stole softly in and whispered good-bye and wished him, our King of Song, a glorious New Year in the heart of the sunset. Mr. Daley was quite resigned, and he had said several times that he should just live to greet the New Year and then a long, long journey. Death of Victor Daley. (1906, January 4).Table Talk (Melbourne, Vic. : 1885 - 1939), p. 8. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146120544
Bits by ' Badge.'
A Striking feature of Victor Daley's funeral was the startling contrast between the pot-hatted, frock -coated, and generally magnificent 'get-up' of notable critics, and the slovenly slop-made toggery of the majority, of well-known writers. Bits by " Badge." (1906, January 6). The Arrow (Sydney, NSW : 1896 - 1912), p. 1. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article103452307
The Late Victor J. Daley
THE IRISH-AUSTRALIAN POET. AUSTRALIA'S SWEETEST SINGER GONE.
Word passed through Sydney on Friday of last week that Australia's sweetest singer, Victor John Daley, was no more. To those who enjoyed his friendship the announcement came as a heavy blow; to the people who prized his poetic Worth the news was received as a personal bereavement by all his death was regarded as a national loss. No master of verse in broad Australia has earned a greener chaplet than Victor' Daley since Henry Kendall was laid to rest; The deceased had been seriously ill for over a year with phthisis. A change to Orange did him little good. It could have done little good to any man not blessed with any worldly wealth. Still he struggled bravely on with his pen and what consolation a few faithful friends could afford. With many dependent on him the struggle must have been keen. Back to Sydney he came and . fixed his last home at Waitara, where Mrs. Daley and the- children nursed him through his long illness, and a few sterling friends did all that thoughtfulness could do to ease his last hours.
To Mr. W. J. Spruson, indeed, is due a large measure of thoughtful , kindness which the family received, and to the proprietors of the 'Bulletin,' who were responsible for the funeral arrangements, n word of appreciation is also due. Victor Daley died at forty-seven, it may be said in the prime of life, with intellect still bright in the body wasted by consumption. To the last he gave evidence of that unconquerable spirit of cheerfulness which even in the shadow of death distinguishes the Irish race. And he died with all the consolation of the faith of his fathers. Victor Daley was by common accord Australia's poet laureate, although his robust sense of humour forbade him imagining, save in play, such a heritage in this new land.
'I name you laureate, ' he said, in playful mood, to Roderic Quinn, the day before he died. And then, remembering that another poet was present, he added, 'And if you don't want it Brady can have it.' Thanking the devout nuns of Waitara, who had been his good angels in his lingering illness, he told them that his soul's preparation for the end was brought about by their kindness. But the good Sisters knew better, and they told him that the end was achieved by the grace of God. 'And are not you the grace of God?' he insisted. 'Twas the poet in him that spoke thus. Far back in Irish history the drearns of Victor Daley belonged. Historians tell us that in the ancient days of Eire flourished j a class of hereditary bards, poets, story-tellers, and men learned in the script of the time. They were physically men of refined features —a race below the ruling height, small and fine of hand and foot as became their calling. Daley seemed one of those troubadours reincarnated. Indeed, he often classified himself as a descendant of those hereditary men of song and allied art. Always humming a melody, the old music was on his lips as in his ever young-heart — the charmed strain-, of those bygone days of love and battle. He sang in numbers unsullied by any touch of grossness. His verse was pure and refined. His lighter work, over the signature of 'Creeve Roe,' delighted those gifted with a souse of humour, due appreciation of dainty rhyme, and good-natured irony. Victor Daley was a lad of twenty when he landed in Australia. His native place was Armagh, where he was born on August 5, 1858. There, as in other parts of Ireland, nearly every square foot is historic ground. Every rath has its fairy tale, every ruin its thrilling historic memories. Young Daley drank in these traditions — fairy lore and song and story. — and the old charm and spirit of them scorned to breathe in his after work which smacked of the truest traits in Irish life.
Young as he was when he touched Australian earth his memories were well defined. Few of his age would have stored their minds with a fraction of those rich memories which Daley brought with him to the new land from the old. But Victor Daley was no ordinary man. He had that spark of the immortal fire which burns from cradle to grave in the soul of genius. And so it was he sang of 'the' bid dead flowers! of bygone ' summers' and 'the old sweet songs,' with all' 'the to'nder yearning sadness of the transplanted Celt striving to twine the shamrock with the wattle and endow each with the glory' of the other. He began Australian life as clerk in Adelaide, and to a suburban paper sent his first chirpings. Thus he made known, his aspirations to the public, and thereafter he ventured to Melbourne and Sydney, and laid the readers of Sydney 'Punch,' the 'Freeman,' and the 'Bulletin' under tribute to his talent.
In Queanbeyan, whither he went on foot, he met the late John Farrell, and the two kindred souls, destined to brighten Australian literature, helped to illume a local journal with their flashing pens. To the 'Bulletin,' under its then editor, Mr. J. F. Archibald, Daley drifted with his stock of poetic outpourings, and his name became a power in its pages as in those of the 'Freeman's Journal,' and other avenues of publicity.
Personally, Victor Daley was business-like in manner, full of energy, humouresly original in conversation, rich in his mind's treasury of knowledge of the things that matter to the men who do not care for the vanities of the world. He would 'rather dwell in Bohemia than in any other land.' As his fellow bard, Roderic Quinn. wrote of him on the occasion of the public tribute tendered him at Sydney, he knew that stocks and shares existed, and, perhaps, he knew the price of beef and bread, but he thought there were better things than stocks and shares in the world, and more exalted mind food than the price of bread and meat.
THE LATE VICTOR DALEY.
Victor Daley talked with a charm of words and a manner that fascinated. He despised much that the world prized — the sham, the seeming, and the cheap ambitions. Not to gain a world would he surrender his soul of song — at least not to win the moneymaker's world. A routine career only trammelled his mind — he would have none of it. On the occasion of the public tribute tendered to him in Sydney a few years ago, some of his admirers recorded their appreciation in song, prose and picture. The late John Farrell; himself no mean artist in verse, wrote of Daley: — ''He has proved himself the ablest verse craftsman of this southern land; of all our poets he is the most delicately fanciful ; and of all the most beautifully Celtic.'
Roderic Quinn wrote: — The tears will but unfold it, And time make fierce its flame ; ''Tis his to; have and hold it — The scarlet Flower of Fame.
Will H. Ogilvie, the bard of the Bush and the Scottish Border, wrote:-— The stars are lit; the shadows lower, Dream music fills the lilac-bower, And I would be content, content With such sweet songs and such gold gloams Could all my dole of days be spent In Daley's Land of Dreams. Constance Clyde, the clever New Zealand writer, contributed her mite, in which she sang: — Yet still, while other blossoms fade, And other memories pass and die, Shall Daley's flowers of fantasy. Bloom in Memory Land for Aye.
Fred J. Broomfield's tribute opened thus: — Robe-bloom; and azure and a flush of gold, Swilt vivid light that o'er the margin gleams ; A radiant vision of the days of old— And Daley dreams. Edward Dyson, the Victorian, poet of the mines, wrote : — The art so -delicate, so line, That to the soul each subtle line Unfolds as daintily as those Fair petals of the perfect rose?
And so wrote other contemporaries. And that which they have written the- future shall illumine;
The mortal remains of the dead poet were laid to rest at Waverley by the blue Pacific. It is one of the grandest of resting-places for the dead. The band of mourners that followed the hearse from the church looked on the scene with a full sense of its fitness as a last resting-place. And as the mourners looked upon the grave the unspoken feeling was that of which the dead poet himself had written in honour of Kendall : —
Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done, Down where thou sleepest in earth's secret bosom, There is no sorrow and no joy for thee, Who can'st not see what stars at eve these be, Nor evermore at mom the green dawn blossom Into the golden king-flower of the sun Across the golden sea.
THE FUNERAL.
On Friday evening the remains were removed from the deceased's late residence, Waitara, to St. Charles's Church, Waverley, where they rested in front of the High Altar surrounded by lighted candles, till the funeral took place. Shortly before 3 o'clock on Saturday the friends of the late poet began to assemble in the church, and whilst waiting for the coffin to be removed to the hearse, Miss May Summerbelle played on the organ 'The Dead March' in 'Saul,' and Mr. J. A. Delany, an old and esteemed friend of Mr. Daley, played Chopin's 'Funeral March.' 'The Dead March' from Mendelssohn's 'Songs Without Words,' and 'the Dead March' in 'Saul.'
The ceremony in the church was conducted by the Very Rev. Father Begley, O.F.M., Commissary-Provincial of the Franciscans, who gave the last Absolution. As the remains were being taken to the hearse, Miss Tracey played 'The Dead March' in 'Saul.' The literary and artistic friends as well as admirers of the sweet singer turned up in good force. Over one hundred marched after the coffin. The coffin was of polished cedar, with silver mountings, and was covered with beautiful wreaths sent by 'Olive,' 'With deepest sympathy,' Mrs. Espinasse ; a pretty design from Miss May Summerbelle, with a card bearing the following verse: — 'Immortelles for thy crown, Earth mourns thy loss. Mute now thy sweet voice lyre, What earth has lost Heaven gains in her celestial choir.'
A beautiful laurel wreath, and on the attached card were the words: 'He also dwelt in sorrow for song's sake.' From one who loved his song. From Thudy, Maggie, and Ella Gormly. 'With deep and loving sympathy. B. Lawson, with sincere sympathy. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison; Claude and Keane Martin; Dr. MacCarthy; Nelson Illingworth ; and a magnificent design in the form of a large harp, to which was attached a pretty laurel wreath, and a large heart formed of red carnations. The outline of the harp was covered with green and white satin on which were shamrocks and beautiful asparagus trailings, the base being composed of white flowers. The whole was symbolical of the harp of Erin, the laurel wreath of the poet, and the generous large heart of the deceased. Attached to the design was a white satin ribbon, on which was inscribed in gold letters, VICTOR, In Verse, In Life, In Song. This was 'From some lovers of Vic. or Daley, and some admirers of Australian verses. The tribute attracted a great deal of admiration, and reflected the greatest possible credit on Miss Goodenough, the well-known florist of King-street, who made it. Another beautiful wreath was sent by Miss Muriel Hinton, 'with 'Tackra's' love to the best of comrades, V. J. D. I cannot write a verse, to you while my 'heart beats slow with sympathy.'
The chief mourners were: J. W. and Xavier Daley (sons), and Eileen (daughter). Amongst others present were Messrs. W. J. Spruson, Roderic Quinn, Rev. N. J. Cocks, J. A. Delany, J. Gormly, W. Macleod (Manager 'Bulletin''), A. G. Stephens ('Bulletin'), Henry Lawson, J. Le Gay Brereton, E. J. Brady, B. Stevens, J. Blakeney ('Freeman's Journal'), Rev. J. Milne Curran, Fred J. Broomfield, Mrs. Bloomfield, W. T. Goodge, Captain A. S. Hughes; C. V. Hynes ('Freeman's Journal'), H. Lantond ('The Worker'), W. B. Melville ('North Sydney News'), A. A. D. Bayldon, L. Foley, W. J. Hegarty ('North Sydney News:)), E. Lewis Scott, W. R. Rogers, E. M'C. S. Hill (President Australian Amateur Press Association), M. C. Brennan, P. J. M'Mahon, P. J. Gandon, N. J. Bsirnott- J. Moehan, M.L.A., Greenless, W. J. O'Neill ('Daily Telegraph'), W. R. Winspear, T. J. Holland ('Daily Telegraph'), J. A. Dobbie, J. B. Frawley, J. J. Quinn, H. Hall ('Evening News'), N. Illingsworth, W. J. Fallon, H. Hourigan, C. Smith, J. S. Ryan ('News Letter'), P. B. Bourke, W. D. Benjamin, W. Mailer, T. O'Dea, T. W. : M'Mahon, W. H. Gocher, A. Montgomery, R. Roberts,1 J. S. Lyon, Captain M'Laughlin, I C. Smith, Dan Green, P. P. Packham, J. H. Jenkins, H. Weston, John Barlow, Miss Muriel Hinton ('Tackra'), ' Miss May. Summerbelle, W. J. Bradley, S. Gormly, M.J. Dunphy, Captain Ain, W. H. Williams, W. Neilon, T. Quealey, — Ford, Miss Rena Wallace, Mrs. Rhys Davies, and Mr. J. W. R. Clarke.
Mr. P. E. Quinn, who had to leave for New Zealand on Saturday morning, expressed regret at being unable to attend the funeral.
When Henry Clarence Kendall was buried in the Waverley cemetery in 1882, Victor Daley, who was one of the very few faithful friends who stood around the grave, remarked, 'I should like to pick a grave in this place. I hope they will bring me here to listen to a song of the sea, when my time comes.' The poet's wish has been fulfilled. His remains were interred in the Catholic portion of the Waverley cemetery just overlooking the blue Pacific, and within roar of the surf as it breaks on the shore, (surely an ideal spot for the last resting-place of Australia's sweetest and most beloved singer. The large concourse stood reverently with j bared heads around the grave, and listened to j the beautiful words of hope and consolation ! contained in the burial prayers read by Father Begley. The funeral arrangements were carried out by, Mr. W. N. Bull. . It may be mentioned that the cartoon in j the Christmas 'Bulletin' parodying the Crucifixion, and which accompanied some verse by Daley was strongly disapproved of by him. The irreverent character of the drawing angered him very much. The devotedness of the Sisters of Waitara Foundling Home, to the dying poet cannot be too highly spoken of. As to the memorial meeting our readers' attention is directed to the announcement of the meeting of sympathisers. The Late Victor J. Daley. (1906, January 6).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 13. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119940277
Victor J. Daley : A Reminiscence
By 'Nunquam."
For some years- up to early in 1896- I enjoyed the felicity-for it was a rare pleasure to foregather with him and listen to him expound- being employed on the same paper mill as the great Australian Bard. In that, year, however, I journeyed across the Great Australian Bight to the Land of the Setting Sun, and when I returned to Melbourne, some (three years later, the "-.o that know him 'knew him no 'more; "he" at that particular period of time being in New South Wales. In 1899, there appeared - of very flattering... (the most ...and erudite being penned by a Mr.Willberforce) in the Melbourne press about the great abilities of my old press pal (par parentheses, his piece was quite on all fours with, his poetry); and although I knew he -almost morbidly-abhorred, anything approximating flattery in that or any other connection, I took the liberty of our old association to clip them out and forward them to a Sydney weekly where I felt certain they would be bound to locate him. They did, right enough; and the following is a copy of his reply-a reply which holds the mirror up to nature as an exemplification of what manner of man Victor J. Daley really was:
62 Great Barcom-street,
Darlinghurst, May 16, 1899.
Dear B
Your letter to hand all right. Many thanks for enclosures. Of course, I consider Mr. Wilberforce, the writer of the complimentary letter about me in the "Argus," a very fine and farseeing critic, with a large, wholesale stock of sound judgment.
So you are with B- now. Great man, B but ruined by his reckless generosity.
I am, for the time, in the service of the God-fearing Government. My duty is to hunt up particulars of the birth and growth and life-history of the potato and the turnip and mangold wurzel and other gentle creatures of the soil. This is what is called the pursuit of literature in this country. It pays, however-after a fashion.
I do a good deal of work for the ''Bulletin," but it is of the sort that will keep. So they buy it and stack it away for use in the days when I shall be assistant-editor to the Recording Angel -in one place or the other.
Meantime I am in very good health-except for occasional attacks of biliousness. I have been on terms of friendship with that wild fellow Ginger Beer for some months. The other fellow has not been taken into my inner confidence for the same period. Write again and I will reply at more length.
yours
VICTOR J. DALEY. Victor J. Daley: A Reminiscence. (1906, January 11). Table Talk (Melbourne, Vic. : 1885 - 1939), p. 19. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146122211
Victor Daley and John Farrell
DALEY met Farrell in Queanbeyan a quarter of a century ago. Farrell was then engaged on the unpoetical work of brewing beer-later, when he wrote poetry and leading articles, he used to say "the more congenial work." Victor Daley, a young, fresh-blooded Irishman, walked into Queanbeyan one day, and got a job on the "Times'' of that town, then owned by Mr. John A. O''Neill. He went to live with O'Neill, who soon recognised he had made a good bargain, for Daley's work made the "'Times" a new paper, and people bought it because of its cleverness and its novel features.
Farrell and Daley both put a lot of their early verse into it, and many a fine joke they used to tell about those days afterwards. One of them is worth narrating. The town had just been incorporated, and the municipal elections were approaching. The temperance people banded themselves together. Farrell (the brewer!) went to O'Neill. "We'll have to fight these good temperance folk," he said with his fine, rich, Irish brogue. And O'Neill told him he could use his paper in ''the cause of fairplay." There was a meeting one night in opposition to the temperance party, and one man in the audience kept making interjectings. "Who is the man who is interjecting ?" it was demanded from the platform. "The man who will be Mayor," came the reply. And the man's name was Nathan Moses Lazarus. That week Farrell wrote these hitherto unquoted lines for the Queanbeyan "Times":-
Will he be Mayor ? He may or may not,
The choice of the voters is often the oddest ;
But anyhow people keep saving "Great Scott!"
Was ever a man so delightfully modest ?"
He don't ask our voice, but gives us his own,
Yet Friday will portion the thorns and the roses ;
And when the numbers are publicly known
We'll see whether Nathan is reckoned our Moses !
There is Irish humor in this skit, and it seems to have had its effect, for Lazarus, though he made a very estimable alderman, was not elected Mayor. For a time Farrell and Daley contented themselves with writing jingle like this. One day a deaf and dumb comp. named Jordan drew on the whitewashed plaster above the fire a picture intended to represent a little angel of about seven summers banging a drum. Daley wrote these lines below it:-
Lord, give me in the realms of bliss
No measly harp to strum,
But let me sit and bang like this
An everlasting drum.
Fancy Daley ever having written such a word as "measly." But these are types of early efforts of twin souls ere they had more fully cultivated the Muses. Besides, Daley drew a thick line between poetry and verse. "Write us some poetry, Mr. Daley," said one of the comps. on one occasion, pointing to the drum and angel. "That's not poetry, my boy; that's verse," said Daley.
As some one has already pointed out, Queanbeyan 20 years ago was what might aptly be described as a Mecca for literary pilgrims. Why ? O'Neill. His heart was so big and he was doing so worldly well that any man fallen on evil days-especially if he were Irish-could be sure of his lending a helping hand. Moreover, it is just within the bounds of possibility that those who had tasted of his hospitality used to "pass the word on," as tramps are said to do, and it was no uncommon thing for minor poets to travel down from Sydney tired of Riot, to take refuge at this Writers' Rest.
Several names recur to me, but they don't concern us now. Daley, Farrell, and others who were making their way up the literary ladder, were oftentimes found smoking their pipes together in Queanbeyan. The two I have named were practically fast friends for life. Practically starting out together, it is curious how they stuck to each other. I remember a good many years ago buying a copy of the "'Bulletin'" book with the title of " The Golden Shanty." There I found Farrell and Daley side by side. I haven't the book by me now, but I remember Farrell's "How He Died" and "The Last Bullet" were there.
I forget Daley's verse. Long before that Daley had published many verses-some in Melbourne, some in Sydney. His first contribution to a Sydney paper was, I believe, "The stucco age," which appeared in old Sydney "Punch." It began--
This is the stucco age, the age of sham :
The age of things immortal and deeds that damn.
In later years Daley and Farrell saw much of each other in Sydney. The former used to tell of a visit he paid to Farrell one night in the "Daily Telegraph" office. ''Which of us is going to write an obituary notice of the other?" asked J. F. They spun a coin. Heads, Daley wrote ; tails, Farrell. "The coin ran under the table,'' said Daley, a few days after his friend's death, "and I think Courtney found it afterwards, but it must have been heads." Daley wrote the obituary, and among other things he wrote was this: - "I remember quoting to him on an evening the saying of Abouben Zeeyd-"I am a singing man of the singers-the world's guest and a stranger.' He said he would say it about me. “And I have to say it about him."
Yet neither of them is a stranger. Both men have gone, but they live for us still in their work. When they buried Daley on Saturday they took with them to the grave a beautiful floral harp, with a laurel wreath attached, and a heart of red carnations and bonvardia-and a streamer said. "Victor-in verse, in life, in song." This from "some lovers of Victor Daley and some admirers of Australian verse." There were many at the graveside, and though some may never have met him, he was no stranger. Rather was he "singing man of the singers-our guest and familiar friend!"Victor Daley and John Farrell (1906, January 28). Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article57209857
John Norton – whose ‘contribution’ to the family post Mr. Daley’s passing away was to be rejected had no understanding of not speaking ill of the dead no matter what had gone before or what your opinion may be - he clearly escaped any ongoing legal action through the death of the person he was maligning:
VICTOR J. DALEY.
PLASTERER AND POETASTER.
An Appreciation, a Protest and a Counterblast to the "Sydney Bulletin's" attempt to Filch Gold from the Pockets of Philanthropic WestraKans.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum is one of those gammoning " gags" with which the people are gulled. If a man and his work are worth mentioning when he's dead, it's just as well to tell the truth. Why death should render immune from criticism a Hfan who in life ought to have been (and probably was) scarified with the critical scalpel is one of those mysteries not worth the solving. In 999 cases out of a thousand dead men tell no tales, and have no tales told about them. Mortals whose memories are immortal are rare as comets and startling as meteors. And those who aspire to immortality, or presume to confer it, must stand cross-examination at the bar of public opinion at the hands of the devil's advocate. Advocatus diabolus sum.
* * *
These remarks are prefatory to a protest against the absurd apotheosis of Victor J. Daley, now being worked up in Westralia by a band of boozy, bad-breathed bards, the quality of whose poetry is on a par with that of the pothouse purge on which and for which most oi them live, and from which most of them, like Daley, "will die. There's nothing decent or dignified about a drunkard. Generally, he's a failure, a fool and a fraud (often all three), and those who would deify a drunken derelict are probably fools, failures and frauds themselves, as well as drunken derelicts beyond all hope, human or divine, for whom drink-cures bring no hope, and for whom the devil, death and damnation can add no new horrors to those of their drunken lives.
* * *
Comparatively few men are born who are worth remembering for long after they are dead: not one in ten thousand. The really great men of acuity can be counted on the ten fingers. If we are to believe his boozy barrackers, Victor J. Daley is one of those mighty, meteoric minds whose works make them worthy to rank amongst the immortals. If not, what's the meaning of this sort of stuff ?
* * *
On Saturday last, to the solemn strains of the Dead March, was borne down the aisle of St. Charles' Church, Waverley, an oaken casket containing the body of Victor John Daley : Poet, philosopher, humorist and friend. For 47 years that body has been the dwelling-place of one of earth's brightest spirits. Now it lies in cold obstruction by the verge of the Pacific. The Great Mother Sea croons her requiems ever below, the Dawn in all her splendor rises up before him, and when the day is done the Dusk, with sandalled feet, softly draws the curtains of darkness about his lied. But as the oaken coffin passed me in the aisle I thought of Heme, and irresistibly my hand went up to the military salute. He, too, was a soldier in the war of the emaucipation of humanity, who had won his meed of jswtca-. If 30 years of combat with the sordid, the ignorant and the inane, with every chord for suffering possessed by a true poet, played upon by the constant wind of adversity—with every instinct for intellectual, social and bodily enjoyment starved and withered through weary days—entitle a man to deep and dreamless slumbers through all eternity, then Victor Daley will surely sleep well. If, on the other hand, such trials are but the passing prelude to some spirit-life where the liberated Ego is no longer trammelled by the muddy considerations of. this commonplace life of flesh, then the soul of Victor J. Daley soars high. Beyond the blue empyrean he sits to-night among the eagles of song, and -watches with fine indifference the vagaries of that world whose guest he was, and a stranger.
He is no longer the slave of oafs or the sport of fools. No longer, like Giusti's starving mountebank—'' who, to please the crowd, must try with gibe and grin —need he barter the pearls of a precious intellect for mere bread, or set aside his singing crown for cap and bells to live. Mayhap, last Friday morning, when he was forever relieved from dread of death or doubt, and when, in his own words, he had " Taken one long, last Fond look at earth, and from afar Watched the dear old planet dwindling to a star," and the gates of the Marvellous swung open before him. John Keats, whose genius he moat resembles, bade him welcome, and courtly Shakespeare nodded friendly recognition, and reckless Omar smiled. Doubtless Kendall—who didst dwell in shadow for song's sake—took him tenderly by the hand: Kendall, of whom he wrote so lovingly, and whose sad life-lot was like his own. What shall I write of this man, whose work I have admired for more than seventeen long and strident years, and known and loved for seven? What shall I say of my comrade, brother and friend? One link in the chain is broken, one flower has fallen from the stalk, one singing bird has flown from the laurel tree!
* * *
This is from the pen of E. J. Brady, himself a poet, somewhat after the Daley sort, whose prose is quite as good as his poetry. As a funeral chant at the graveside of Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, Byron or Tennyson it would have sounded hollow and high-falutin. Beside the bier of a Daley it is mere maudlin, metrical muck rendered into prose: an outrage on common sense : a poetaster's pantomime-parody on what is called "The Man and His Work," the best feature of whose life was his manner of leaving it.
* * *
Victor J.- Daley is dead and buried. He practically drank himself to death, as many similarly weak-willed wastrels, of higher attainments and greater accomplishments, had done before him, and as perhaps many more will do after him. We are told that no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. So, too, we know that no drunkard can be a god among men. Daley deliberately did himself to death in spite of the efforts of friends and admirers to save him. He boasted that he was a bard of Bohemia, which in his case, as in that of his fellow pothouse poetasters, meant a jingling rhymster, for the most past of the time on the tear. They, like him and all such, must come to the common end, unless they have the courage to poison themselves, as did Chatterton: to shoot themselves, as did Adam Lindsay Gordon : or to hang themselves, as did Barcroft Boake: either that, or to die in the gutter like Edgar Allan Poe, a greater genius than Daley and all his boozy barrackers combined. A drunkard is not an edifying spectacle, either in poetry or politics. He's better dead, and his death is not to be made the pretext for dropping dollops of delirious doggerel-dung upon his coffined clay. Because a man has boozed and bummed about from bar to brothel with another is no reason why he should be proclaimed an immortal god, and the public called upon to set up a brazen image of him for popular, public worship.
* * *
The claim put forward for the canonization of Daley is about as cool a piece of cheek as the bard bar-bummers of this beer-bitten city have yet advanced. Daley was a man whom drink had degraded to a des picable level. To get cash to continue a carouse, he was capable of any dirty, dishonest trick or contrivance. Metaphorically speaking, he'd steal bread out of a bird-cage, or burgle a baby's money-box-for the means to buy drink. When he couldn't buy it, he'd cadge or borrow the money, which was rarely, if ever, re-paid. He played all sorts of paltry tricks on his family and friends in order to obtain drink. At one time he would represent that one of his children had died, and he had not the means for giving the body decent burial. Having raised £& or £5 in this grim, ghoulish fashion, he would go off and spend the burial-money in beer. On one occasion Daley and another drunken poetaster, since dead, like Daley, from drink, wanting the wherewithal to continue a prolonged drunk, put up a job, as they jocularly termed it, on the proprietor of a newspaper to which they both occasionally contributed. It was arranged that one of them should go to the office of the said paper and represent that " Poor Victor" had just died suddenly, and that there were no funds to pay funeral expenses. In this way the wind was raised to the tune of £5. But while this swindling trick was being perpetrated on a generous and long-suffering employer," Poor Victor" had got further suddenly mixed and forgotten the relative roles that he and his. fellow-swindler had to play. Daley somehow got the impression that it was he who had to go and represent the other fellow as dead. Drunk, he wandered down to the office with a tale about t'other fellow's death and a demand for a loan for funeral expenses, only to find that t'other fellow had been there and raised a loan on his corpse and made off with the plunder. All Daley got was what he deserved : the dirty kick-out. * * * Such escapades as these don't damn a man, neither do they make him great, and worthy to rank with the immortals. A man's conduct toward his own family is a good criterion to his character. Most men are the better for marriage and parentage. Some are marred by marriage, and of the duties of parentage have no more notion than a pig. For many years Daley had entailed upon him all the duties and responsibilities of marriage and parentage without, however, really performing them, or even consecrating them with any religious or legal ceremony. The story of his cruel and callous neglect of his domestic duties cannot be told, out of deference to the feelings of those whom he failed to provide for in his lifetime, and whom he has left unprovided for now he is dead. While posing as an inspired poet, and breasting every bar where beer was to be had for coin or cheek, Daley was neglecting his duty as a man, a husband and a father. For the greater part of his life he was little better than a lazy, literary loafer, like the majority of the push of pothouse poets with whom he pigged for purge, and who are now pretending to put him on a pedestal of immortality as a prince among men and a peerless poet. It is of such a morally sordid, spineless specimen of humanity that a brother " poik " and boon companion of his, the Brady bard above-cited, has the insane impertinence to pen this precious, mendacious and meretricious muck.
* * *
Le Gallienne, in a recent review of Rod Quinn's verses, expressed the opinion that Australia is probably the worst country in the world for poets. To Daley it proved particularly hard, inasmuch as Destiny had fashioned him for a poet only, and outside of his splendid verse and a purely literary talent, for which this country appears to have small demand, his capacities for earning a livelihood were circumscribed. Consequently, life with him developed into a pathetic struggle for bare existence, a struggle in. which (gallant soul that he was) he displayed a philosophy and a heroism as rare as they were beautiful. A measure of adversity, which would have soured mo^t men, but served to perfect in him the qualities of the poet, the. sage and the martyr. With fine nobility of soul, he rose above the littleness of earth, and even in life his seat was with the gods. It is a fact that no man ever heard him speak ill of another, and although he used a pen like a scalpel in dealing with the world's shams, and displayed at times much of the sardonic wit of Heme, he was never known to attempt personal retaliation or to descend to tbe worldly and the mean. When the shafts of misfortune flew so thickly that, like a flight of black arrows, they obscured the light of the sun. he fajed the battlements with a quaint heroic humor and a philosophic courage peculiarly his own. He died at the comparatively youthful age of 47 : the wonder to those who knew him is that he lived so long. To the very end his indomitable spirit burned like the wick of some sacred vessel before an altar, even when the oil that feeds it is exhausted. With lungs ravaged by the devouring bacilli of cruel phthisis,- his voice fallen almost to a whisper, kept alive by
medical skill on brandy and opiates, in the intervals of his pain he contrived a joke for visiting friends, and, too weak to laugh himself, watched. with evident satisfaction their answering smiles. A brave man and a great man !
* * *
This, for the most part, is downright demented drivel. Le Gallienne is probably not far wrong in representing Australia as the worst country in the world for poets. Most young countries have but little time for poets. But La Gallienne is not an infallible guide to poets. He's but a poor poet himself: the clever chap who took upon himself to improve Fitzgerald's version .of Omar Khayyam, and succeeded in metrically masturbating the astronomer-poet of Persia. But if Australia has not proved propitious to poets, it has to be recollected what a drivelling, drunken lot the majority have been. Nowhere in the world have such a paltry lot of poetasters put forward such proud claims to. be considered as national poets. The best of them now dead died as broken-down boozers. And the best or worst of those remaining bid fair to follow in their footsteps and make similarly sad but appropriate' ends. I have myself buried a baker's dozen of their sort. So far from Australia treating Daley badly, he was treated far better than he deserved, or even seemed to desire. Brady, the blubbersome bard, would have the world believe that his pintpot pal and boon companion stood, like the brave, with his face to the foe all his life, and that his life developed into a pathetic struggle for bare existence. Bunkum! Bosh ! Bah ! Daley's life developed into a degrading scuffle for beer. Had he loved graft more, and grog less, he'd have done well enough, and have been able to earn a steady income, ample for him to support his wife and children in decency and comfort, like an honest The pity of it is that Daley, who was Born and trained to be a plasterer, preferred to pose as an inspired poet to earning an honest living at his trade. He mistook the inspiration of bad beer for that of the* Pierian spring. His soul, instead of soaring into the empyrean blue, was centred in the swipes at the bottom of a pint-pot. He could have had plenty of literary work, both in prose and verse, on the daily and weekly press, but he was so seldom wholly sober for long that no editor cared to have him about the premises, where he was little better than a pauper pest and a drunken nuisance. His adversities were of his own creating: and he deliberately rejected the good .so freely offered to him on every hand, and as deliberately chose the evil. Daley preferred to be a beery Bohemian boozer to a decent journalist, fulfilling the daily duty faithfully to his employers and family, devoting such time as he could spare to his trifling, tinkling, thinking muse. No, he would be a Bohemian, and, by God, he was a Bohemian. He lived like a Bohemian and died like a Bohemian, but would, like Edgar Allan Poe, have died like a Bohemian dog in the gutter but for the kindness of friends who stood by him to the end. " Poet, sage and martyr!" babbles Brady. Fair poet, no doubt. Sage, not a scent of sense or sagacity about him. Martyr, yes. Most certainly a martyr—like many millions more—to drink.
* * *
This booming of a drink derelict like Daley by a band of boozing, barbumming bards is disgusting and degrading in the extreme. If tolerated without protest, it would encourage the growth of a pest from which this State already suffers : the pothouse poet. A man does not need to become a boozer in order to be a bard, as some of the shikkered champions of Daley's dubious claim to immortality seem to think. The inspiration that prompts a drunkard is not provocative of the highest poetry : a fact of which much of the poetry of Daley's brother bards affords ample proof. Strong, hard drink, especially of the cheap and nasty sort, indulged in by the bardic boomers of Daley's claim to the laureate's crown, not only prompts bad poetry, but also conduces to disgustingly bad manners, as evidenced by the behavior of some of these bardic boomers at the grave-side on tbe occasion of Daley's burial. Some of these beautifully-inspired and sweet-smelling singers—a whiff of whose breath would stagger an ox— turned up at the funeral in a state of beastly intoxication. At least two or three of these boozy bards, who have been figuring so prominently in the Daley memorial monument movement,
were so drunk as to be in danger of falling into the grave on to the top of the coffin containing the corpse of their dead brother-bard. Such creatures as these, who can't keep sober enough to attend the funeral of a dead friend, who really died from drink, ought to be sent to the new Inebriates' Asylum on the Hawkesbury, which establishment should be opened and set going at once for their especial benefit. A fine lot of fellows, to be sure, to confer the palm of poetry and the crown of immortality on a poor fellow just dead of the same disease as that from which they themselves are suffering. Men who don't, or won't, pay their tradesmen's debts, who have to be summoned in police courts for the maintenance of their wives and children, and who are everlastingly drunk, can scarcely claim to be considered fit and proper persons to have and hold tbe public confidence in matters involving charitable funds, part of which it is proposed to devote to the purpose of raising a memorial monument to their dear, dead friend, Daley. This is the claim they put forward. And this is precisely the sort of claim which I feel confident the public will not recognise in favor of such a scandalous set of persons.
* * *
I am pleased to know, and to publicly notify, that what Daley ought to have done, but did not do, for his family, is being done by sympathising friends. Through Daley himself his family have no special claims on public sympathy. It is Daley's neglect to provide for them that constitutes the best basis of their claim. That being so, I shall contribute towards the fund, to make provision for Airs. Daley and her four children, a donation sufficiently substantial to show that my sympathy with the widow and the orphans is as strong as my contempt for the band of badbreathed, bardic bounders, who would have the public believe that a man like unto themselves was a sage and a martyr. My money, like my sympathy, goes not to a memorial for Mr. Brady's model sage and martyr, but to the poor woman and children, who are the real martyrs in this most miserable and melancholy matter.
JOHN NORTON.
Medlow Bath, Blue Mountains, N.S.W.
VICTOR J. DALEY. (1906, March 24).Truth (Perth, WA : 1903 - 1931), p. 1 (CITY EDITION). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article207394487
While Mr. Norton was perhaps lamenting his inability to produce poetry by lampooning those who did, yet another benefit, this time to support those left behind, was being worked out - we include the reference to Mr. Fell as he had a holiday home at Mona Vale:
Mr. W. Scott Fell, who Intends contesting the Middle Harbour seat at the next election, gave an exposition of his views at Birchmore's Hotel Steyne, Manly, last night. Mr. J. P. Wright presided, and there was an excellent attendance. Mr. Fell said that at the last election of the Reform candidate he had remained loyal to the committee, but felt free now to offer himself, and intended going to the poll against all comers, whoever they might be.
The executive committee of the Victor Daley Memorial Fund have obtained the use of the Theatre Royal, through the kindness and liberality of Mr. William Anderson, the lessee, and a big matinee benefit entertainment, to be held on the 30th of next month. The entertainment promises to be of a specially unique and attractive character, and memento programmes will be distributed. Mr. Philip Lytton is generously placing his services at -the disposal of the committee, and It Is understood -that Mr. J. C. Williamson's company and other theatrical companies will take part In the performance. A general meeting will be called in the course of a few days, when the committee will ask for the co-operation of all Interested in the movement. MEN AND WOMEN. (1906, February 17).The Australian Star (Sydney, NSW : 1887 - 1909), p. 6 (LATE SPORTS). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229654019
A movement has been started in Sydney to assist the widow and family of the late Victor J. Daley, the well-known poet, who died on December 29. Mr. Edwin J. Brady is the secretary, and Mr. William' M'Leod, managing director of the 'Bulletin,' is the treasurer of the fund.
In a circular letter Mr. Brady- points out that Mrs. Daley and her children are' in very straitened circumstances owing to two facts. The first is that, unfortunately, a poet's earnings in Australia are very meagre, and the second is that poor. Daley endured a protracted illness, the expense of which absorbed all his scanty savings. It is desired to make some, provision for the family, and any balance will be devoted to marking. Daley's grave by a simple and appropriate monument. Victor Daley was undoubtedly a sweet-souled poet, whose songs will Jive to bright en- and cheer a sad world. As a .man arid a comrade, his- friends have paid him the honor of 'saying that a letter man never lived: It is the hope 'of everyone that, though Daley's great genius met with but- scant recognition when he was alive, the work he has done in the Australian world of poesy will induce the public to liberally respond to the appeal for assistance now made in behalf of his widow and children. MAINLY ABOUT PEOPLE (1906, February 27). The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 - 1950), p. 11 (THIRD EDITION). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article82683550
The Bachelor.
(For THE 'FREEMAN.')
Bachelor, so crusty,
Growing old and musty,
Bit beyond your prime
Nemesis is watching
And you'll get a scotching
In the winter time.
You had many chances.
Many smiles and glances
Met you in your day.
Women worth tho winning;
But with apish grinning,
Love was thrown away.
Love that never falters,
Never lies nor palters,
Chaste as any nun,
Comforter of sorrow,
Same to-day, to-morrow,
Constant as the sun.
But you were too clever,
Never made endeavour
To espouse a mate.
Women were a bother,
Kicked up such a pother,
Best the single state.
Marriage meant forsaking,
Many pleasures, breaking
Friendships you had made.
Cards with Dick and Harry,
Wine with Tim and Larry,
Out at Night Brigade.
Too much self-denial,
Storm and stress and trial,
Sticky-fisted wean.'
Up at night. By Jingo!
Howling like a dingo,
You were not so green.
Seated by the ingle, .
Sorrowful and single,
Staring at the coals,
Not a friend to cheer you,
No companion near you,
Jacket full of holes.
Growing grey with worry,
None, to say, 'I'm sorry,'
No caressing hand
Aiding you when ailing,
Lamentably failing,
Near the better land.
Oh you silly scoffer,
This advice I proffer:
Change your mode of life,
Ere your locks grow thinner.
Go, you wrinkled senior,
Get yourself a wife.
N.S.W. :J. M. DRUM.
The Bachelor. (1906, April 21). Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 27. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119937245
THE EMPTY GLASS: BY HENRY LAWSON.
(FOR MRS. VICTOR DALY.) :
[Written for the Catholic Press ].
There are three lank bards in a borrowed room—
Ah! The number is one too few —
They have deemed their home and the bars unfit
For the thing that they have to do.
Three glasses they fill with the Land's own wine,
And the bread of life they pass.
Their glasses they take, which they slowly raise –
And they drink to an empty glass.
(There’s a greater glare in the street to-night,
And a louder rush and roar,
There's a mad crowd yelling the winner's name,
And howling the cricket score :
Oh! The bright moonlight on the angels white,
And the tombs and the monuments grand —
And down by the water at Waverley
There's a little lone mound of sand.)
Oh, the drinkers would deem them drunk or mad,
And the barmaid stare, and frown —
Each lays a hand on the empty glass
Ere they turn it upside down.
There's a name they know, in a hand they know,
Was scratched with a diamond there—
And they place it in sight— turn on more light— ' .
And they fill their glasses fair.
There's a widow that weeps by the Hornsby line,
And she stood by him long and true—
But the widow should think by the Hornsby line
That others have loved him too.
'Twas a peaceful end, and his work was done,
When called with the year away;
And the greatest lady in all the land
Is working for her to-day.
If the widow should fear for her children's fate,
Or brood on a future lot,
In a frivolous land with her widowed state
In a short twelve months forgot.
She can lay her down for a peaceful rest,
And forget her grief in sleep,
For his brothers have taken an oath to-night,
An oath that their hearts can keep.
They have taken an oath to his memory,
A pledge they cannot recall,
To stand by the woman that stood by him,
Through poverty, illness and all.
They are young men yet, or the prime of life,
And as each lays down his trust,
May the world be kind to the left behind,
And their native- land be just.
(Silence of death in town to-night,
And tho streets seem strangely clear —
Have the pitiful slaves of the gambling curse
Fled home for a strange new fear?
Oh, the soft moonlight on the angels white,
Where the beautiful marbles stand —
And clown by the rollers at Waverley
There's a mound of the golden sand).
HENRY LAWSON THE EMPTY GLASS: BY HENRY LAWSON. (1906, February 22). The Catholic Press (Sydney, NSW : 1895 - 1942), p. 15. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article104908281
THE GHOUL AT THE GRAVE!
Dear Worker, — It would be a misfortune if the electors of Cootamundra and Surry Hills cast their votes without some consideration, as humane men and women, of the way in which John Norton dealt with the lovable and gifted Victor J. Daley, the brilliant Irish-Australian poet and journalist. About three years ago the admirers and warm, personal friends of this cultured, courteous and kindly-hearted man of letters were horrified to road in 'Truth' an article headed, 'The Dipsomaniacal Drunkard and Boosey Bard Daley.' The infamous article would have been cruel beyond expression if it. were levelled against the vilest creature that cumbered earth. It would have evoked the pity of humanity if it concerned the conduct of a besotted ruffian of the most contemptible type. As it was, it aimed at the character and happiness of one of the purest-hearted and whitest-souled sons of Irish-Australian genius our land has possessed. It was aimed at one who neither by pen nor tongue wrote or uttered a word that was not indicative of a clean heart and a noble mind. It was aimed at one who had enriched our stock of literature with lofty thoughts, and exquisite sentiments; and it: was aimed at one whose disposition was as gentle as his companionship was charming, and his conversation elevating. But if the article was painful to Victor’s friends, it was a vital blow at a man of Daley's sensitive and refined nature. Ho took it to heart, and fretted so keenly that he was never the same man again. There are some natures so delicately tuned that their very innocence makes them peculiarly susceptible to injuries inflicted by poisoned pens or scorpion tongues. A coarse-fibred criminal laughs at the vocabulary of a Norton. The gentle and genial Daley felt that assault like a dagger thrust. From this date his health declined, and, eighteen mouths ago, his friend, Dr. McCarthy, gave him but a little while to live. On Christmas Eve before last, the sick and suffering Daley left his wife and family in Sydney and trained to a farm near Orange in hope of health. Racked by pain and too weak to walk, he struggled heroically to write bright and happy articles to pay for bread and rent for those dependent on him. He was spending his life's blood. Six months later — about this time last year —he returned to Sydney, and those who loved him say, with tears in their eyes, that poor Victor J. Daley was all but exhausted by a dread malady. His body was a shell and his voice a whisper. He wanted to work, but the pen fell from his white fingers. But his brave Irish spirit was undaunted, his eyes sparkled, and pain could not perish his playful wit. Victor was taken with his wife, his two sons, and two little daughters to Waitara, where he was visited daily by the nuns of the Foundling Institution close by. They were as tender to this dying man of genius as they were to the babies under their care.
As an illustration of Daley's inborn delicacy and refinement, this may be cited : The reverend mother asked him one day how he was. 'Very happy, thanks to your kindness,' replied Daley. 'No,' said the sister, 'thanks to the grace of God.' 'But,' said Victor, quietly, 'are you not the grace of god!-'
The remark was characteristic of the purity and simplicity of the poet. The stricken man lingered in agony till just after Xmas. The remains were laid at rest in Waverley cemetery. There was a great gathering at the graveside. Men and women representative of every creed and calling, from the highest to the most humble, paid a last tribute of love and respect to one who was noble in life and a peer in literature. Tears of sorrow moistened every eye, and everybody felt that he or she had suffered a personal bereavement, and that our land had lost one its best. With the solitary exception of Norton's 'Truth,' every journal :in the Commonwealth and New Zealand lamented the death of Victor J. Daley. 'Truth' came out with four columns of vulgar, unspeakable vilification of the dead man. The article was signed by John Norton who asks the humanity of the constituencies of Surry Hills and Cootamundra to vote for him on the grounds of 'public policy.' In the opinion of the people who read that article, it was declared to be the most awful production in venom and verbal violence that ever flowed from a pen. Women cried and men vomited. In comparison, Deeming and Frank Butler -Were white angels to the black Devil Daley. It was appalling, merciless — a fury in phrase that would make a fiend shudder or a harridan shiver. God save the living, let alone the defenceless dead, from such attention in Norton's 'Truth.' And the article did not spare the fair, name of the widow, herself stricken with a. painful' malady. Norton insinuated that Mrs. Daley was not wedded to Victor — a 'Truth' statement destitute of truth. And in this . same atrocity, Norton offered this bereaved widow and grief-stricken mother of Eileen and Nora Daley, on whoso name and on whoso dead husband and father he cast the cruel and groundless slur, the sum of .£10. Just as ostentatiously as lie sent his insulting cheque, so Mrs. Daley silently returned it. Let the wives and daughters of the constituencies of Surry Hills and Cootamundra re- 1 member -how John Norton treated the wife and daughters of poor, dead, Victor J. Daley. Not content with the frightful wounds inflicted by the ghoulish attack on the voiceless and defenceless dead, Norton, unabashed and unashamed, reiterated the charges and repeated the insults a few weeks later. ''What can be said of a man who carries vindictiveness into a lonely grave, who tortures a widow on her deathbed, and who taunts with namelessness girls on the threshold of womanhood?
And a candidate such as this assails Mr. Holman, who, with his amiable and talented wife, befriended the dying Daley and sorrowed over his death. The good men and women of the electorates have a sacred duty to perform. If they vote for Norton they will endorse the dreadful insults and vicious libels flung at the dead Daley and hurled at the living widow and children Please God, they will not do so. Irish-Australian men and women will surely not invite the curse of Carey on themselves and their children by voting for a man who vented his venom on the dead Irish-Australian poet, philosopher, and friend of humanity. If they do, they are to be pitied. I am writing this for the sake of our common humanity in the fervent hope that it will make every man and woman think before recording a vote that will annoy their conscience to their dying day. A clean and healthy, manly and womanly vote is confidently expected of every elector with a heart to feel and a brain to decide. n is repugnant to mo to have to take note of this man, who has for so long flourished on the tears of women and the fears of men, fattened on the pence of those who gloat over the lampooning of the weak and the unfortunate, and boasted press and parliamentary power through the endorsement and confidence of honest men and women who really believed he rendered a service to society. But I would be lacking in a duty as a journalist to the manhood and womanhood of my native land if I failed through any craven fear of the raucous voice or ribald pen of John Herring (the son of a Belfast restaurant-keeper) who dropped his Herring on his trail to Australia. I would, also, be contemptible if I feared to defend the gentle character of my lamented friend, the clean and wholesome, gifted and scholarly Victor J. Daley, against the ghoulish aspersions of the champion of malignity and purveyor-in-chief of brutal journalism and moan scandal — Her- 1 ring, otherwise 'Norton.' j And this man, who has, through his' paper, assailed the characters of a thousand public men and private citizens — men, women and children — and acquired power and prosperity in the traffic in besmirched reputations and in the trade in human miseries, rushed to the police for protection when poor, old and maimed Gilbert Probyn Smith gave him, in a pamphlet, a dose of the mixture he has, before and since, doled out to the public. This libertine of the press sought to jail Gilbert Probyn Smith for 'An Open Letter to John Norton.' And now the valiant fellow, having' pursued poor Victor J. Daley with poisonous pen into his cold and silent grave, seeks to kill public regard and private affection for the generous-hearted and bright-brained W. A. Holman.- Is there one elector in either Surry Hills or Cootamundra so politically debased as to aid and abet the scurvy political schemes of scaly Herring? God grant there is none.
WILLIAM BEDE MELVILLE. Manly, July 15.
THE GHOUL AT THE GRAVE! (1906, July 19). The Worker (Wagga, NSW : 1892 - 1913), p. 8. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145733092
We return, in kind, to where we began - discovering this place, which is still a haven of peace and an inspiration to so many, was also a place where this funny, gentle and worded colourful Bard would also find succour:
Preface
Wine and Roses
Victor J. Daley
Sydney Angus and Robertson - published 1911
edited, with a memoir, by Bertram Stevens:
Memoir
OVER thirty years ago Victor Daley, then a happy, wondering Irish lad, drifted out to Australia. His head was full of old tunes and fragments of poetry; his pocket was nearly empty. The sunshine and freedom of Australia delighted him, and, in careless, vagabond fashion he enjoyed the fleeting pleasures? of the day with little thought of the morrow. A good companion, “a fellow of infinite jest,” life to him was a gallant spectacle, which he loved to look at and did not take seriously. Worldly success never tempted him, for he was a Bohemian by birth; but he was also descendant of a bardic sept, and he wanted to be a poet. So he wrote verses charged with the melancholy regret of the Celt for vanished glories and the beauty of remote things, dainty opalescent lyrics with hints of fairy music, witty and ironic verse on passing events, and, occasionally, prose sketches. When the pressure of hard realities brought sorrow into his life he wrote more gaily and vigorously than ever. For twenty years or more he charmed a large number of readers. In this thinly-peopled continent the makers of verse are numerous, and though Daley never appealed to so large an audience as the ballad writers, he was the writer best beloved of the writing clan.
Daley travelled through life with few impedimenta, and left behind no papers from which biographical data could be drawn. The story of his life which follows here may, therefore, be inaccurate in some particulars. He believed that he was born at Navan in the county of Meath, Ireland, on the 5th September, 1858, and that he was christened Victor James William Patrick. The last two names were dropped early in life. His father, a soldier, went to India with his regiment when Victor was an infant. Falling ill there, he sent for his wife and child; and a few weeks after their arrival the three left for home. The father died on the voyage.
For some years afterwards Victor lived with his grandparents, in a district associated with one of the great periods in Ireland's history, and amongst people who were intensely patriotic and learned in fairy lore and legend. Memories of the stories he then heard were vividly retained until the end of his life. Some of them were embodied in articles written for the Sydney Freeman's Journal, from which I have taken these passages:—
“In the front garden of my grandmother's house there was a great Fairy thorn. They told me, before I began to know much about history, that Queen Meeva had planted it there with her own white hands. And, indeed, anything was possible in that country. Green Emania—which is now called the Navan Ring—was within arrow-flight of us, and a little more than a mile away was a lonely little tarn in the middle of a field. They called it the King's Stables. The bottom of it was paved with blocks of stone, and many relies of the days of old had been found there by adventurous divers. It was really the site of the Great Rath of the Red Branch Knights. The town-ship is to this day called Creeve Roe (Red Branch). Not far from it, and under the shadow of McCormack's brae, is Lough na Shade (Clear Water) into whose depths no man has ever ventured, because of the Great Snake that is below guarding the crock of gold, which was the treasure of Cormac MacNessa.”
“.… When I was a boy staying out at night, for the love of the thing and the romance of living in a little hazel house of my own on the side of the Rath, I saw the Sidhe—or I thought I saw them, which was the same thing—coming out of the long-choked gates of the Castle of Conchobar,dressed in green and gold and riding on little white horses on their way to Lough na Shade. Some distance away—five hundred yards or so—from the Rath is a little mound, smooth as the breast of a giantess, that had been ploughed over and sown with corn in the early spring and grown in the last spring, and yellow in the summer, and thick with whispering tongues and listening ears in the autumn. This was once the Speckled House. A Scotchman by the name of Leeman owns the place now, or rather he owned it when I was a boy. My grandfather used to say that, if we had our rights and Cromwell and James the First had never been born, the great house would have been ours, and the Leemans would have been calling at our back door begging some seed potatoes and the loan of a furrow or two from our fine black-soil field in which to plant them. ‘Princes in the land we were in the old time,’ my grandfather would observe, ‘and let neither of you boys ever forget the fact.’ I was about eight years old then, and his son—my uncle—was over thirty. .… My uncle was a sub-centre of Fenians, and I myself was probably the most violent rebel in the whole county of Armagh.”
Daley's mother, who was of Scottish descent, married again and removed to Devonport, England Victor, about 14 at the time, was sent to the Christian Brother's school in that town What he valued most afterwards was the privilege to browse at large in the school library, and he then became fired with an enthusiasm for literature. At 16 he passed a Civil Service examination, and entered the Great Western Railway Company's office in Plymouth
After three years, he tired of the work and grew restless. His stepfather had relatives in Adelaide who were childless, and he suggested that it might be a good thing for Victor to join them. Australia appeared to the boy's mind as something like a modern Hy-Brasil, and he gladly agreed to go.
Early in 1878 he reached Sydney; there he left the ship, as he liked the look of the place and thought Adelaide was within easy reach. His slender stock of money dwindled away and he took a job as gardener to a clergyman, although he knew nothing of gardening—as the clergyman soon discovered. Before long he got to Adelaide, where he found employment as a correspondence clerk.
In Adelaide, Daley experimented a good deal in verse and some of his rhymes were printed in a local paper. By chance a love-lyric of his was sent to an office client instead of a letter; remonstrances followed, and Daley left for Melbourne. He had a vague idea of going on to Noumea, but at a race meeting in Melbourne he lost all his money, and had to turn to free-lance journalism for a living. For a time he was on the staff—in fact, he was all the staff—of a suburban paper. Then some of his verses were printed in Melbourne papers; two striking sonnets appeared in The Victorian Review, and Daley became acquainted with the principal writers of the city.
“I met Marcus Clarke once,” he said later on in a Bulletin article. “Somebody whose name I have forgotten introduced me, and said with pompous sarcasm that I was a young aspirant to literature, and that Marcus had better look after his laurels. I felt furiously ashamed and distressed, but Clarke nodded kindly, shook my hand, and told me that he would say something to me about literature later on. I inferred from the tone of his voice that the information he had to give me would not be pleasant. He never gave it. George Walstab was there, and Garnet Walch and Grosvenor Bunster, and, I think, Bob Whitworth and others. The conversation flowed on. I was in Paradise—a Paradise that smelt of whisky and cigar-smoke, and echoed with light-hearted laughter. I had previously read La Vie de Bohème, and I said to myself, ‘This is Bohemia, indeed.’ And it was. All good fellows. All good writers. Then, in a pause of the conversation, while they were ordering drinks, or lighting their pipes or something, Marcus Clarke turned to me and asked me what I was doing—meaning I suppose, in that galley. I replied that I was by trade a correspondence clerk. but I was then writing for a suburban paper, and never wanted to be a correspondence clerk again. Some member of the company, who was passing out of the room, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Don't give away your silk purse for a sow's ear.’ I didn't catch his meaning at the moment, but all the others laughed. Now I know why they laughed.”
One happy-go-lucky acquaintance of this time, Larry Spruhan—the “half Galahad, half Don Juan” of a poem in At Dawn and Dusk—lured Daley away from writing suburban leaders on European politics—“which must have made the iron knees of Bismarck knock with terror.” Spruhan was off to prospect for gold, and promised to send for Daley as soon as he had good news. For a week or two, I believe, Daley sold Japanese pottery at the Melbourne Exhibition of 1880. The profit was magnificent, but the tenure of office all too brief. Soon news came from Spruhan at Queanbeyan, N.S.W.—“Struck it rich, come at once.” Daley, with a friend named Caddy, took the train as far north as their funds would allow, and then tramped. They had a number of adventures before they arrived at Queanbeyan and found that Spruhan had disappeared. Daley got a billet on a local paper, and stayed about six months.
Moving on to Sydney he worked for the expiring Sydney Punch and the newly established Bulletin. He met Kendall, whose poems he greatly admired, and mixed with the little group of artists and writers who were as an oasis in the desert of money-making people. Writing of them twenty-five years afterwards, he remembered them all as jolly fellows.
“Everybody about town seemed to know everybody else in those days. There were, of course, some of them who did not like each other; but I think that, on the whole, there was more geniality on the streets than there is now.… I believe also that there was more real camaraderie amongst musicians, artists, pressmen and even actors than there is at the present day. Possibly this was because they were all young—in spirit, if not in years—and doing fairly well without making slaves of themselves.”
Somewhere about 1885 Daley went back to Melbourne, and wrote with varying fortune for most of the papers there, as well as for The Bulletin. In 1898 it was arranged to publish a selection of his verses, and in that year he returned to Sydney in connection with the book. At Dawn and Dusk was moderately successful. Australian reviewers, almost without exception, praised it highly, and many predicted that it would be warmly received in Britain; but it made no impression there. While Daley's work had a unique place in the regard of Australians, it was, not unnaturally, slighted by British reviewers because of the absence of local colour.
By that time Daley had ceased to care for fame. He had no illusions about the place of his verses in the pageant of poetry. He was satisfied if his writings would earn him enough to live upon, and glad that they had introduced him to the society he liked. Many times in earlier years he had meditated a big work in verse which would express all he had thought about Things-in-General. He began one when staying on the Hawkesbury River in 1884, and the result was printed as “Fragments of a frustrate poem.”
“I yet shall sing my splendid song;
The world is young, the world is strong”
he cried, and tried again, but found that he was incapable of sustained effort.
Only for brief periods had he tried to do any regular work, apart from literature. After At Dawn and Dusk was published, a place was obtained for him in a Government Office in Sydney; but the adding of perpendicular columns of figures and making them agree with horizontal columns was an agony not to be borne. “That way madness lies,” he said, and walked out.
From the conventional standpoint his life was a failure. Yet he had practical wisdom and a respect for conventions; if he had tried he might have succeeded, as many lesser men have done. He never cared to try. Life seemed too precious to waste in striving for money or position, and his temperament demanded freedom from routine. He came to know that a bitter price had to be paid for freedom, and he paid it without grumbling. Daley was as unhappy as Charles Lamb if long away from the city, and a vagabond life in town is without the purifying influences which the fresh hand of Nature can bestow. In a city there are many taverns, and at times Daley touched the mire. Yet he remained unsoiled; for he was clean at heart, and, apart from the irregularities of Bohemia, he had no vices. Many stories, grotesque and humorous, have been told about him; and in time to come the Daley of legend maybe a figure resembling the Beloved Vagabond of Locke's romance.
There was nothing riotous in Daley's nature. He confessed that he had never had a grand passion and seldom experienced profound emotion. His colour sense was not opulent; but he thrilled to the beauty of delicate shades, and preferred the faint green dawn to the sunrise, the dusk to the sunset. His talk was excellent. He touched any subject of conversation with a gleaming fancy, and would risk much for a jest. Of his desultory reading he remembered the anecdotes, the picturesque images, the magic phrases, and unconsciously echoed some of them in his own lines. He was a true votary of old world Romance, and some of its glamor he cast over the continuous stream of bright shining verse which flowed from his pen—finely pure, but thin when it was seen running side by side with that broader and more turbulent current which was coloured by Australian soil.
Daley's health failed in 1902, and friends enabled him to take a voyage to the South Sea Islands in the following year. In 1905 it was found that he had consumption. He went to Orange on the New South Wales table-land; he was lonely there, got no better, and returned toSydney in the Spring. For months he saw the end coming; his buoyant spirit rode like a cork on a sea of troubles, and he jested in the face of death. He died at Waitara, near Sydney, on the 29th December, 1905, and was buried at Waverley, not far from the dust of those other Celtic spirits which have enriched Australia—Kendall, Dalley and Deniehy.
Light-hearted, brave, generous, but weak of will—the man was finer than his work, and his work is good.
Family Threads
RETURN THANKS. Mrs. VICTOR DALEY and FAMILY return their very sincere THANKS to the many friends and sympathisers for the telegrams, kindnesses, and other expressions of condolence, and especially so to the good Sisters of Waitara Home, during their late sad bereavement. Family Notices (1906, January 5). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14721994
The late Victor Daley's younger daughter, Norah, aged ten, has gone to India to join her aunt, her father's sister. PERSONAL (1906, April 7). Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 16. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119940405
Friends of Mrs. Victor Daley, widow of the poet, entertain grave fears for her health, which has been very poor since her husband’s death. Odds and Ends of Sport. (1906, November 28). Gadfly (Adelaide, SA : 1906 - 1909), p. 12. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article203954120
Mrs. Elizabeth Ann Daley, relict of the late Victor J. Daley, the Australian writer and poet, died at her residence, in Orwell-street, Darlinghurst, on Thursday, after a lingering illness. The deceased, who was in her 50th year, came to Australia at an early age, and has left two sons and two daughters. OBITUARY. (1906, November 28 - Wednesday). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 1367. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article163686446
The widow of the late Victor J. Daley did not long survive her husband. On the 22nd November — one week short of eleven months after the poet's death — Mrs. Daley, who had for some time past suffered from a very painful malady, breathed her last at her home, Darlinghurst. During her last illness the deceased lady had received tine consolations of the Catholic faith from, the Rev. Fathers O'Gorman and Sherin, and after life's fitful fever she sleeps well' beside her husband in the Waverley cemetery. The funeral on Friday in last week was attended by many well-known literary people of both sexes, who stood around the grave sadly and reverently as Father O'Gorman, assisted by Father Sherin, performed the last offices of the Church'. Mrs. Daley is survived by two sons and two daughters, one of the latter of whom is with her paternal aunt in India. PERSONAL (1906, December 1).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 19. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108028457
DALEY. VICTOR J. — In affectionate remembrance of our dear father, who departed this life Dec.29. 1905 at Waitara. N.S.W. Inserted by his fond children. John, Eileen, Xavier and Norah. Family Notices (1906, December 30).Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW : 1895 - 1930), p. 2. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article126551177
The late Victor Daley, the well-known poet, was once presented with a pot of ‘Shamrock' at the 'Freeman's' office, then in Lang-street, a few days before St. Patrick's: Day. A peculiar whim seized him, and he proceeded up the street to the. Manse, where the Orange firebrand, Rev. W. Dill-Macky resided. Despite the entreaties of .his young daughter, who was with him, Daley entered the Manse and presented the anti-Catholic minister with the pot. To his credit, be it said, the Rev. Dill accepted the pot, placed it carefully on the table and instructed the maid to keep it watered. LOOKING BACKWARDS. (1928, April 5).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 16. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article118082332
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
"Hazeldean," George-street, Manly, September 20, 1909.
To all Protestants, but especially Ulster Presbyterians.
Dear Friends,—When at home In Ireland I came across a little volume written by the Rev. Alexander G. Lecky, B.A., entitled "In the days of the Loggan Presbytery." The book should be read by all Protestants, but especially by Ulster Protestants. I have been enabled to place a limited number of copies for sale with Mr. Thompson, 61 Hereford-street, Glebe Point, from whom they can be obtained at two shillings per copy. I have no financial interest in thus recommending this book -Sincerely yours, W. M. DILL MACKY, D.D. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. (1909, September 23). Watchman (Sydney, NSW : 1902 - 1926), p. 12. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article115097625
Private Victor Daley, reported wounded, is the youngest of the late Mr. Victor James Daley, the well-known Australian poet and journalist. His nearest relative is Mr.. J. W. Daley, of Sandgate, and a sister Mrs. E. Walsh, of Sydney. Private Daley Joined the Second Queensland Expeditionary Force but previously was known in the Coff’s Harbour and Dorrigo district, New South Wales, as a surveyor’s assistant. Personal Items. (1915, June 22). Northern Star (Lismore, NSW : 1876 - 1954), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article72128373
Victor Daley enlistment papers of September 23, 1914 in Brisbane have his age as 24 years and 10 months meaning he was born in 1889 in St Kilda – war records letter when lost medals states was October 10th, 1892 his death is recorded in these as February 20th, 1949 ‘due to war service’ – his age given at death as 56 means he was born in 1893/1892. He married in 1929:
Marriage: 12908/1929 DALEY VICTOR X ACKERMAN BARBARA M E BURWOOD
He was at Lady Davidson Home in Turramurra (August 1943) prior to passing away:
DALEY VICTOR XAVIOR 4172/1949 VICTOR JAMES ELIZABETH ANN RANDWICK
DALEY. Victor Xavier -February 20 1949 at the Prince of Wales Hospital late 15th Batt. 1st. A. I. F. beloved husband of Barbara Daley, of The Entrance, loving brother of Eileen ( Mrs. W. J. S. Walshe) and Nora (Mrs Duxberry) Aged 56 years. At rest. DALEY -The Relatives and Friends of Mrs Barbara Daley are invited to attend the Funeral of her beloved Husband VICTOR XAVIER DALEY to leave T J Andrews Funeral Chapel 2a Fnmore Rood Newtown This Day at 11 15 am for Rookwood Crematorium. Family Notices (1949, February 22). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 16. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18098641
Private John William Daly, well known in country newspaper work was amongst recent arrivals at the Bathurst camp. The new recruit is the eldest son of the late Victor James Daly, the well-known Australian poet. Victor Xavier Daly, the youngest son of the late poet, enlisted at the beginning of the war. He saw active service at Gallipoli, and although his present address is not known to his relatives, it is understood that he is still on active service. Personal (1916, March 9). National Advocate (Bathurst, NSW : 1889 - 1954), p. 2. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article158058956
John William Enlistment papers list on Feb. 9th 1916 he is 31 years and 7 months – making his birthdate in 1884 – born in Sydney.
Jack Daley, journalist and free-lancer writer, son of poet Victor Daley, is doing the West on, a canvassing stunt. Unlike his gifted Dad, Jack could not string two lines of rhyme together to save his life. PERSONAL PARAGRAPHS (1930, October 14). The Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate(NSW : 1894 - 1954), p. 1. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article132089230
DALEY. - -July 6 1944 Murwillumbah Hospital 2404 Capt John William Daley 1st AIF son of the late Victor James Daley, husband of Elizabeth Daley 130 Shafston Avenue, Kangaroo Point father of Sergt William, Gunner John and late Flt. Sgt., Carol, Olive and Leila father In law of Gunner Jack McKay Cliff Levis (Atherton) Flo and Lily. aged 60 years. Family Notices (1944, July 10). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 8. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17912973
__________________________________________________
MISTER JOHNSON.
(For the 'Freeman.')
Mister Johnson owns a station,
And a mighty man is he,
One who has an inclination.
To despise Democracy.
He was once, it is recorded,
An accountant in a bank.,
And in that position lorded
Over folk of meaner rank.
That, was in the days of coaching,
When you'd of-en plainly hear
Down the road a gang approaching,
And 'Ball up!' howled in your ear.
In the days when men who reckoned
Riches could be won with ease,
Sailed where fortune beamed and beckoned,
Far across the trackless seas.
Men heroic, men of muscle,
Hard as iron and as tough,
lurry Foleys' in a tussle;
Mister Johnson found them rough.
Once he had a sharp encounter
At a pub in Dingle Dell,
With a miner, William Blounter,
And the theme was 'Blood wild tell.'
Mister Johnson, he contended
That in manner, as In mind,
One from blue-blood line descended
Beat the red -blood beggar blind.
Blounter, bluff and horny-handed,
Couldn't see the point at all.
And in heated tones demanded
He the libel should recall.
Johnson then, exasperated,
Wished to make his point- complete,
And to do so illustrated
With some horses in the street.
'There,' said he, 'you see a racer
And a cart-horse side by side.
Now I'll bet you half-a-caser '
The distinction's rather wide.
'One a thing of grace and beauty,
Prancing, tossing, capering,
Made to do a noble duty;
Fit to carry England's King.
'T'other just a fodder-muncher,
Common as a seaside ass.
Like a burly bullock-puncher —
Stolid, stupid, and no-class.'
Thus he gabbled, and had barely
Time to see the storm arise.
When a cyclone struck him fairly
Right between the noble eyes —
Struck him hard, and struck him often,
All the ruby rippled down;
And it seemed as if a coffin
Would be wanted in the town.
Johnson doesn't like the story —
Hurries on to other themes.
But at night the big and gory
William haunts him in his dreams.
N. S. W. J. M. DRUM.
MISTER JOHNSON. (1908, December 3).Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 37. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111284349
IN THE LIBRARY.
Daley, The Indomitable.
BY A. H. CHISHOLM.
True humour is a kindly jade,
And, though she laughs with all her heart,
When men by, trifles are dismayed,
She helps them play the manly part.
MOST of us will agree that in these lines the spirit of humour is fairly represented. And all who knew anything of their author— the late Victor J. Daley — as a writer or a man, will cheerfully acknowledge that he himself was to the very letter, a bright example of the truth of the precept. Australia has never had a singer who sang so gaily, in spite of troubles of the flesh; never a writer who kept a braver spirit when the future loomed dark before him, holding out nothing, but suffering without surcease. In the satirically humorous piece from which the lines above are quoted, Daley gives a kind of adaptation of Voltaire's narrative of how a certain great philosopher differentiated between his own troubles and the woes of others. 'The Philosopher ' satirised by the Australian is simply an example of many — I was nearly going to say most people, who can bear others' burdens with perfect equanimity — because blissfully passing them by— but are dismal failures in shouldering their own.
WITH perfect justice Victor Daley could smile at this purring brand of consoler; for the 'kindly jade' had claimed him for her very own, and, in truth, she helped him 'play the manly part.' How well he did this those Who knew him are best able to say. Le Gay Brereton, for instance; —
Flushed by the farewell bonfire of the day,
Where the faint breath of summer, fluttering,
Recalled the eager panting of the spring,
Among the sapling gums the poet lay,
Gripped by his pain, worn out by long delay,
His thin face shadowed by the hovering wing;
But still of his own soul the sceptred king,
Still jesting in the old familiar way.
Those whom he never knew will love to dream,
In the bright secret place whose golden key
He brought with curious care of fire and file;
But We, who saw him weary and tortured, see
Still in our moonlit moods agleam
The light of his indomitable smile.
AND what vivid memories Roderic Quinn has of 'the old familiar jest'— of Daley scribbling beautiful verses , on his (R.Q's) collar, and selling the lot— of the poet lying in the Shadow of the Frontier, but still bright and unbeaten.. A journalist friend (says Quinn) called to see the sick man. 'Take this, Victor,' he said, waving a bottle of patent medicine. 'Why?' said Daley choking as he asked: 'Well,' said the visitor, thinking up marvellous recoveries, 'there was Sir Gordon Sprigg; they didn't give him six months.' 'They should have,' said Victor lightly. Very soon he was past joking.
These are the memories of Daley's friends, but a wide circle should soon behold the lights of his indomitable smile. A collection by Bertram Stevens that will probably contain all the best of Daley’s humorous writings is shortly to be published. As is generally known, the greater part of his work appeared over the signature of “Creeve Roe” but Daley was not absolutely constant in this, and some delightful quips are credited to ''V.J.D.” in person. 'Creeve Roe’ never had the honour of claiming any of the 'dreams divine' of the poet but neither was the nom de plume utilised where contention was possible.
ONE thing that Daley will never— or should never — be accused of is insincerity. He had the courage of his opinions and wrote that he did not believe— though his tilts in one direction had a habit of bounding back on himself. But if Daley recognised this, he did not trouble, for, like everyone else, he would rather impugn himself than allow another to. And probably, if the preceding sentence came under the notice of Daley's ghost, the writer would be fitted into the character he satirised in “The Doomed Man” – a sort of tired protest about the wisdom of the wise, that had little sympathy with Bohemia One verse: -
There comes to me – God knows that I
Respect him well, though he must die
A man who says that he could weep
To see me sell myself so cheap;
A man who says could I command,
Your brilliant wit and genius grand,
And literary style unique,
I would make twenty pounds a week.'
HIS genius, Daley averred, could not be always fired to boil the pot, and he had pleasure in writing the epitaph of his tormenting well-wisher. In the matter of sincerity, with what a world of feeling Daley speaks of his inability to be away from the city. No mouther he of the hollow affectations of many urban naturalists about the 'charm of the bush' and the 'spell of the wild.' Essentially of the town, he was for no time happy away from it, and in those dark days of 1905, when he was wooing the Goddess Hygeia 'in a far country,' this spirit found vent in a characteristically whimsical manner—intermingled with such fine poetry as that passing impression of the wind: — ' its sound is like the rude Match of a multitude' . . To a battle hymn. '
DALEY tried country life:— 'I have tried, almost passionately, to take an Interest in pigs, and calves and poultry, also other farm-life, including bees. The bees warmly reciprocated my interest, but the other animals were stolidly indifferent. Of course, one recognises that homely farm operations are good works, and, as such, worth dray-loads of prayers and acts of faith, or even devotional poetry; but— I have seen enough of them. And here is, the last verse of 'The Call of the City. :—
A soft wind in the gully deep
Is singing all the trees to sleep;
And in the sweet air there is balm,
And Peace is here, and. here is Calm.
God knows how these I yearned to find!
Yet I must leave them all behind,
And rise and go — come sun, come rain —
Back to the sorceress again.
For at the dawn, and when the night, is falling,
Or at noon, when shadows flee,
I hear the city calling, calling, calling
Through the long, lone hours to me.
I HAVE wandered somewhat away from the text of these notes, but the spontaneity of Daley's humour carries one along unconsciously. There's an excellent little thing, however, that must not be passed, for it has a peculiar interest in the light of recent events. Mrs. C. B. Fry had been singing the praises of Victor Trumper in an English magazine. 'Some day,' she said, 'someone will paint Trumper's portrait; it will be hung in a national gallery; he will be dressed in white, with his splendid neck bared to the wind, standing on short green grass against a blue sky; he will lie waiting for the ball, the orchestra to strike up.'
Here follows Daley:—
Ho, Statesmen, Patriots, Bards, make way!
Your fame has sunk to zero,
For Victor Trumper is to-day
Our one Australian Hero.
High purpose glitters in his eye,
He scorns the filthy dollar;
His splendid neck, says Mrs. Fry,
Is innocent of collar.
Nay, rather let a statue be,
Erected his renown to,
That future citizens may see-
The gods their sires bowed down to.
Evoe, Trumper! As for me,
It all ends with the .moral
That Fame grows on the willow-tree,
And no more on the laurel.
IN 'The Great Secret,' an entertaining sprite from the spirit world tells Daley of the other sphere: — 'Like this world here, It's mostly what you like, to make it'. The blithe spirit the afflicted poet maintained showed how well he recognised this truth. In those dark days when he was failing fast, when irresponsibility had fallen from him, he could not sing the Splendid Song of old, but still the old indomitable spirit rose above physical weakness, and he joked even while he gasped. In the bright 'Hygeia,' written from Orange in 1905, there is nothing of the querulousness of the invalid, even in the supplicating verses to the 'maid divine': —
When the morn's flag was unfurled,
Thou wert with me, rapture bringing,
While my heart a song was singing:
Of the Beauty of the World —
Does the morn no longer glow?
Was it all so long ago?
IN THE LIBRARY. (1912, July 31). Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), p. 20. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article158478372
Another article, years after he has passed by well regarded historian John K Ewers:
PIONEERS OF THE PEN.
Victor Daley.
(By John K. Ewers)
To lovers of Australian Literature, the name of Victor Daley suggests one of the most charming personalities that has ever trodden our soil. Yet the pictures we have of him are as fugitive as the faeries of his native land. He seems always to be just going around a corner and leaving behind a rougish Irish smile, a lilt of light laughter, and then he is off, following some new will-o -the-wisp of his romantic fancy.
He was born in Ireland on September 5, 1858, the son of a Scottish mother and an Irish father, who shortly after Victor's birth, was called to India on military duty. Here he was taken ill and his wife and child made the long journey in an attempt to race with death. A few weeks after their arrival, the three set out on the return journey to England, but the ailing soldier died at sea. For some years Victor was sent to live with his grandparents in Armagh- amid all the atmosphere of Irish legendary. The growing boy listened with rapt attention to the stories of the Sidhe, and once when he was out in the fields' at night he thought he saw them emerging from the rank grass. The wizardry of these old stories remained with him till the day of his death. When Victor was fourteen his mother married again and they moved to Devonport. England, where the boy was educated at the Christian Brothers' School Here he was able to make use of the large school library, and this fired him with a passion tor literature. When he was sixteen he passed a Civil Service examination and entered the Great.Western 'Railway Company s offices at Plymouth. ; However, the restlessness of his nature manifested itself and three years later he grew tired of the work, and emigrated to Australia, intending to' visit some relations in Adelaide. However, becoming attracted by the appearance of Sydney, he left the boat there- thinking that It would be an easy matter to go on to Adelaide whenever he felt so inclined. It did not take long for him to run short of money and he was obliged to look for employment. He took a position as gardener to a clergyman, but ashie knew nothing of the work, did not last long in that capacity.
Ultimately he reached Adelaide, where he became a correspondence clerk. While there he wrote some verses of an experimental nature, but the story goes that he inserted a love lyric by mistake in a business letter, and the remonstrances which followed were so unpleasant, that he left shortly afterwards for Melbourne. It was his intention to go on to Noumea, but, losing most of his ready cash at a race-meeting, he was obliged to abandon the project. In the city he turned to free-lancing, for a time editing and managing a small suburban paper. Two sonnets, printed in the 'Victorian Review,'introduced him to the leading literary men of the day. ... 'I met Marcus Clarke once,' he wrote in an article in 'The Bulletin' some years afterwards; 'Somebody, whose name I have forgotten, introduced me, and said with pompous sarcasm that I was a young aspirant to literature, and that Marcus had better look after his laurels. I felt curiously ashamed and distressed, but Clarice nodded kindly, shook my, hand and told me that he would say something to me about literature later on. I inferred from the tone of his voice that the information he had to give me would not be pleasant. He never gave it.'
With Clarke he mixed with a company of care-free Bohemians, who were well aware of the uncertainty of literary work as a permanent occupation, and who did their best to persuade' Daley to keep to more regular employment. 'Don't give away your silk ' purse for a sow's ear,' said one, but Daley was of that , care-free disposition which prefers 'freedom at any cost to the chained slavery of constant work. From- Melbourne he was lured by a friend to an outbreak of gold at Queanbeyan, but when he reached the 'field, his friend had disappeared, and Dale^ secured a position on a local paper, which he* held for six months. He next took up his headquarters in, Sydney, where he met another circle of literary men, among them Henry Kendall. At this time he was contributing verses to 'The Bulletin,' which was but newly formed, and to 'The Sydney Punch.'' He returned to Melbourne in 1895, but was back in Sydney three years later in connection with a book of his verse which was about to be published. 4 'At ; Dawn and Dusk,' as the book was called, was well received throughout the States, -for, although, his work contained little, local colour, there was a flavour of romance and camaraderie about it that endeared him to a large circle of readers. His poems were never the result of sustained effort. Always he was the restless romantic, his mind flying off at a tangent from one subject to another, and his body was as restless as his mind. -H}s' lines in the poem, 'Dreams' are typical of his attitude: — ' 'I have been dreaming all a summer' day , Of songs and sonnets carven in fine gold; -x But. all my dreams- in darkness, pass away, The ,riay is fading, and the dusk is' cold.' After, the publication of his book of verse, he was give a place in a Government office in Sydney, which, for some reason known only -'to those responsible, has been considered . the due reward of more than one Australian writer. But Daley chafed under the routine, and the clerical work was far from congenial. One day he laid- down his peif in despair. The figures were dancing in their columns before him'.' 'This way madness lies!' he said, and without more ado left 'the' office. In 1902 his health commenced to fail and his friends arranged for him a trip to the South Seas. Three years later he was sent to the interior of New South Wales suffering from consumption, but as he did not improve, and because he missed the companionship ot lus city friends, he returned to Sydney in the same year. -On 'December 29 he died and was buried in the Waverley Cemetery, not far from ' his well-loved friend, Henry .Kendall. Even though he knew the end was near, Daley's spirits remained buoyant as of' old. He was not afraid. to die. ?'' .'What cart death do to mo# \Tlie suri''*is shining on the : sea. Yet shall ' I. sing my 'splendid song — The world ''s. young, .the world i'b strong!' 1 Daley 'was essentially a lover of the city. To him the bush 'appealed only when he was jaded by work and wanted to be quiet. He did not worship at the shrine of nature like Kendall. His particular study was of human nature. Where there was a romantic story to be read into a glimpse of grey eyes, where there were man and maid together, where there was the flow of human life with its struggling and travailing and loving there was Daley, standing a little remote from it all' and recording it with a pen that brushed lightly over what was sordid and dwelt tenderly over what was romantic. He was especially loved by his fellow craftsmen. His was. not a turbulent Celtic nature, but the gentle presence of tlie dreamer, tlip idealist, and above all the romanticist. He loved the more subdued shades of colour, the quieter forms of beauty. A happy conversationalist, his spoken words were coloured with the delicate faucv that is revealed in his ppems. Daley did not follow any school of verse, nor did he create one. He wns,- not a ba'lladist. He had not the rhythm of Gordnnt.or the music of Kendall, but wns perlinns more profound than either. He was indebted to no man for his style, but there is evident in most of his workiof.the Irish blond that ran red in his veins.
What shall a man remember
In' days when he is old, .
And life is a dying ember,
And fame a story- told?
Power — that came to leave him?
Wealth — to the wild waves blown?
Fame— Hint c-iro? todeCi-ive him?
Ah not Sweet love alone!
Honour and wealth and power
May all like dreams depart —
But love is a fadeless flower
Whose roofs are in the heart.'
Those were the lines of his youth, but they were every bit as real to him when he passed on at the age of forty-seven. PIONEERS OF THE PEN. (1930, July 26).The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article33357842
"Creeve Roe" Is Splendid Literary Job
In discovering the lost political poems of Australian writer Victor Daley Muir Holborn and Marjorie Pizer have done a splendid literary job which has left the Tory critics dumbfounded These Tory "critics" had "proved' to their own satisfaction that Victor 1 Daley was a "votary of old world romance," a dreamer who "showed no signs of ever having considered humanity in the mass’' a writer who sang only of "a realm of music and faery." And now two young research students have dug up the real poems of Daley, the political and left-wing writing that the Tory critics had buried, and we see that Daley is one with the splendid Australian tradition of Francis Adams, Furphy and Lawson, of Miles Franklin and Katharine Susannah Prichard, and the many other writers who have used their pens as weapons in the people's struggle against reaction. Love Of Humanity And Daley, when his true self is revealed, as it is in this book (called "Creeve Roe" because that was Daley's favorite pen-name; it is Anglicised Gaelic for "Red Branch"), is an attractive, witty, friendly person with a fine sense of humor and a love of humanity that inspires him to fearless attacks on oppression and wrong, on hypocrisy and cant. And it is amusing to find how appropriate most of the poems are today, even though they were written so many years ago. Take, for instance, these verses from a poem on the Sydney Morning Herald, which in 1903 had been making pompous statements in support of "honorable traditions" of the British press:—
Young men who would succeed As pressmen, unimperilled
By foolish notions, read The Gospel of the HERALD— . . .
Take views as calm and high As Newton did, or Herschel;
But always keep your eye Upon the Things Commercial.
. . . But let the Public see,
When you have abstract reasons,
How liberal you can be
In proper times and seasons.
Proclaim undying war,
In leaders fierce and murky,
'Gainst Russian horrors,
or The Tyranny of Turkey.
Write boldly, cut and thrust,
'Gainst wrong in some unseen land;
Denounce the Blubber Trust
That paralyses Greenland.
... Be hard on ancient Rome—
Things dead, or at a distance,
Are safe—but take at home
The line of least resistance.
Pose as the People's friend,
Its candid, calm adviser—
But never dare offend
The Lord God Advertiser.
Then you will happy be
And will fulfil your mission.
And well uphold the free
Old British Press Tradition.
And so, with all these poems—Mary Ann with its contrast of wealthy woman and working woman—The Gospel of the Lash, whose maxim "Never flog the well-connected," was applied in a certain reprieve in Britain a few days ago—and in the stirring Ballad of Eureka and many others, we find they still live today because of their humanity, their hatred of wrong, their burning sincerity. The value of Daley's work is enhanced by a brilliant critical essay by Muir Holburn which exposes the old false "Daley legend" and gives us the real Daley, the "soldier in the war of the emancipation of humanity," as E. J. Brady called him, the rebel writer of whom every Australian can be proud. Attractively designed and printed by Edwards and Shaw for the Pinchgut Press, Sydney, with drawings by Roderick Shaw, Creeve Roe, which is priced at 10/6, is a book which every Australian lover of literature should possess. Its authors are to be congratulated on a very worthwhile job — L.F. “Creeve Roe” Is Splendid Literary Job (1947, May 9). Tribune (Sydney, NSW : 1939 - 1954), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206690563
CREEVE ROE, by MUIR HOLBERN and MARJORIE PIZER. Sydney; Pinchgut Press, 1947.
IT is a pity that this very attractive volume - a good piece of Australian publication has no other title on the cover than Creeve Roe. You have to turn to the title-page to get further elucidation: the sub-title is Poetry by Victor Daley; and probably not many readers know that Daley often wrote under the pen-name of "Creeve Roe."
The volume is most welcome both for its own sake and as-I devoutly hope-a promise of more to come. For Victor Daley's poetry has become almost Inaccessible except in meagre anthology selections; yet he is one of the most authentic of our Australian lyrical poets. Lyrics on the whole are scarce in this country; and Victor Daley, at his best, wrote them with exquisite ease.
He had the sublime gift of the overtone, that simple little something that touched the heart with-out your quite knowing why. Often I think, it was is the echoing cadence of the words.
Take, for example, the closing verses of "Anacreon," which I am forced to quote from memory-for reasons given above-hoping my memory is accurate:
And lovers walk in pairs, but she is gone!
Anacreon Anacreon!
That looks so childishly simple. But all good lyrical work is childishly simple: that's what makes it so rare-and so difficult; most people are born hopelessly adult.
The poems in Creeve Roe, largely taken from the Bulletin and the Tocsin, don't quite satisfy me; but that is not a derogatory remark. It's a bit of sheer egotism. I mean this: in many of us Victor Daley's very name stirs almost mystic chords of memory, and when-at last-one opens a volume of his verse one expects to find all the things that moved one many years ago.
I remember, for example, reverently handling a manuscript of Victor's that a friend lent me back in the pre-1914 period: a poem about a river-maiden, written out in Daley's neat hand on good paper and in violet ink. I have been trying to find that piece again for years, knowing that such a search may be only sentimental-in the same way as you want to read again some story that you read when you were very young in the Boy's Own Annual and yet feeling almost hurt when it doesn't figure in a new selection.
A more "rational" reproach that I would make with regard to this new volume is that the Creeve Roe poems show Daley as a democratic, more than a lyric, poet. This, of course, does not put him in a bad light: he had very real satirical power, and was an eloquent defender of the common man.
And then this reproach is not quite justifiable. The editors, who have done their work very well, were con-fronted with considerable difficulties, having to produce a reliable text by collating, as far as they could, different publications of individual poems. This would have become a tremendous job if they had set out at the same time to make a completely representative Daley anthology.
Moreover, one feels pretty sure, from the loving care that they have' bestowed on this volume, that it is only a beginning. They simply cannot let Daley's admirers down after that; they will have to go on towards what is so badly wanted: a complete edition of the poet's verses. How sadly that is needed, and how woefully unknown this true poet re-mains to so many Australians, is made clear in the editorial notes; in the introductory remarks by E.J. Brady, and in the excellent introduction by Muir Holburn.
The latter finishes with this remark: "It is to be hoped that the proper critical, and public, estimation that has been so long denied to Victor ,Daley will not be withheld any further, and that as soon as the real nature and extent of his work has been fully grasped, he will begin to exercise his rightful influence1 upon the rising generation of Australian poets."
There are many-not enough, but still many-who will applaud that, turning to their scrap-books and thinking how good it would be to see those faded excerpts reproduced in good printer's ink: a positive resurrection. Anacreon, Anacreon! - A.R.C. Belated homage paid to Victor Daley (1947, May 24).The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 38. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22428233
By Arthur Jose, journalist and historian - on At Dawn and Dusk (first published in 1898), in an Article title 'The Romantic Nineties' we hear about his one published, while alive, work.
More than once Daley complains about this photograph, not liking it, not thinking it captures his true essence at all. The description of Daley's physical appearance doesn't match that given later in a publication 'Victor Daley' by A.G. Stephens. A. G Stephens (Alfred George), 1865-1933.
Sydney : Bulletin Newspaper Co. 1905. This available online through the State Library of Victoria and includes another photograph which he didn't want being used
Mr. Stephens, who knew Daley, describes him as:
"Physically Daley was of the middle height, with a large head set upon somewhat heavy shoulders. His face showed his mixed ancestry: the brow broad; the eyes large, soft, and dark in colour; the nose strong, the mouth and chin weak. His hair and beard were brown, between black and ruddy. Colour counted for as much in his physiognomy as in his poetry; and the plaster bust modelled by N. Illingworth meets one strangely, so pronounced is the loss."
Portrait of Victor James William Patrick Daley, poet, ca. 1890s, courtesy National Library of Australia - http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-137978549
The book is prefaced:
To My Sister
by Victor J. Daley
In memory of our young days ashine
With dreams, when life was an opening rose,
Take, Alice dear, this little book of mine,
All made of dreams and dying sunset-glows,
A lonely bird that singeth far apart –
Yet shall sing sweeter in its home, thy heart
The Old "Bookfellow."
THE same year (1899) saw the birth and death of another notable little magazine, A. G. S tephens's "Bookfellow"-the original home of a charming quatrain about Australia "in contemporary literature." One would like to know the author. R.H.C were his Initials:
Whaler, damper, swag, and nosebag,
Johnny-cakes and billy-tea,
Murrumburrah, Mercmendlçoowoke, Yoularbudgeree,
Cattle-duffers, bold bushrangers, diggers,
drovers, bush race courses,
And on all the other pages, horses, horses,
horses, horses.
The "Bookfellow's" front cover was always a delight (Fischer was responsible for that). Chris. Brennan, who criticised contemporary British verse in "The Australian Magazine" with admirable tact, chose French poets for his "Bookfellow" critiques; and a mass of paragraphs, often of real literary Interest, appeared In it, probably because they were just too exotic to suit the "Red Page." But the magazine will be remembered chiefly for a delightful splurge by Victor Daley, which he called "Narcissus and Some Tadpoles." The sketch of Narcissus-avowedly the editor of the "Red Page"-is probably the most artistic bit of caricature known to Australian literature. One longs to quote the whole of it, but space is lacking;
I am the Blender of the pure
Australian Brand or Literature. . . .
The finest local poetry
Grows finer when distilled through me.
I murmur softly as I write
"How exquisite ! How exquisite?"
A second part, sited "In a Hop-Beer Hell," is a symposium of poets, Arthur Adams, Rod. Quinn, Brennan, Daley himself, and a couple more, who, after a violent altercation, have their respective merits allotted as follows;
Jones! You’re the dreamiest poet In Australia. Stand out!
Smith ! you're the most distinguished poet in Australia. Stand out!
Brown! You're the grandest poet In Australia. Stand out!
Robinson! You're the prettiest poet in Australia. Stand out!
Doolan! You’re the fattest poet in Australia, stand out!
Readers can fit the caps as they prefer.
The Two-sided Victor Daley.
THAT brings us to Victor Daley, as two-sided a personality as one can remember. On one side he was assuredly "the dreamiest poet In Australia," and the most purely-poetical, equalling Henry Kendall at his best, though by very different methods.
When "At Dawn and Dusk" was published Will Ogilvie wrote:
A perfumed flower
Recalls a passion-laden hour,
And breezes heavy with Its scent
Blow down beside his Lethe streams,
And stir the drowsy popples bent
In Daley's land or dreams.
I forgive the egotism for the sake of the coincidence-had already, while I was struggling with the proof-corrections of Daley's volume, found almost the same metaphors:
The scent of every faery flower
That In Titania’s garden blooms,
Threading her slumbers, hour by hour.
With delicately rich perfumes,
my little eulogy began, and shifted its imagery to;
Out of the glowing brazier streams
A lucent vapour, spreading slow.
Whereon the singer's aery dreams
Like magic pictures fade and grow,
After that congruence of opinions we may perhaps grant the dreaminess- But it was the same Daley who, when he and John Farrell were working together at Queanbeyan, wrote:
Lord, give me In the Realms of Bliss
No measly harp to strum,
But let me sit and bang like this
An everlasting drum!
That was the Daley of the famous Dawn and Dusk Club, "whose meetings are veiled in secrecy," wrote a critic of 1899, but were more or less revealed to the world in after years by George Taylor, In "Those Were the Days!" It was that side of him, probably, that inspired his suggested advertisement for "At Dawn and Dusk":
"Are you suffering from heat, cold, boredom, bad dreams, colic, Influenza, spots before the eyes, or a feeling that something Is about to happen? Try a volume of 'Dawn and Dusk.* If one volume does not cure you, try a dozen. Angus and Robertson have stacks of them."
That reached me in purple ink on green paper, a vile combination to which he was addicted. The same medium was used for a vehement refusal to supply his portrait for a frontispiece to the volume: "Do they think the picture of a red-headed Tipperary Irishman is going to attract purchasers?"
The book's title was not his first or his second choice. He would have much preferred "Rabesqurat," but his publishers doubted whether buyers would have read "The Shaving of Shagpat"-and in any case, neither buyers nor sellers could have pronounced it properly. Then he proposed "Wine and Roses," which had merits as a title, but not as a title for that particular book. (It was used, posthumously, for a book it suited still less.) "At Dawn and Dusk" was a compromise.
It is hard to express to this generation our feelings about Daley the poet. We watched for his acceptance by the London critics with complete assurance, and their neglect of him staggered us: it broke for ever the old, bad tradition that London's approval was worth something. When the best that they could accord him was "The Outlook's" "manly and sincere, what-ever their technical shortcomings," even A. G- Stephens protested: "But these are surely only the preliminaries of praise."
Of the Dawn and Dusk Club side of him I prefer that others should write. His own comment was:
"With wine and jest and laughter long,
Their lives appear to pass, maybe:
But still beneath the River's song
There sounds the sobbing of the Sea".
One of those sobs is my own most personal recollection of him. In the "Dawn and Dusk" volume he included a group of three poems instinct with passionate regret, which, as they stood, seemed to me associated unnaturally. I suggested giving them individual titles and destroying the pretence of connection. After argument-he was always patient of argument-he saw my point, but said he must have them grouped; and three days later he sent along a verse with the note "Will this make the connection plainer?"
Here is the verse:
These broken lines for pardon crave;
I cannot end the song with art;
My grief Is grey and old-her grave
Is dug so deep within my heart.
You must study the "Fragments" to see clearly how those four lines made them a single poem, one of the most moving he ever wrote. For my part I rejoice that my persistence drove him to write them. The Romantic Nineties. (1932, June 4). The Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 - 1933), p. 19. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article21975930
Extras And References
The City Of Sydney.
WITH this issue we present our readers with a large engraving showing a bird's eye view of Sydney, the "Queen City of the South." The picture will interest our town readers, we hope. We are sure that it will be useful, instructive, and amusing to such of our numerous readers as reside in the country. It will show at a glance the extent of the city proper. It has been found impossible to present in one view the magnificent suburbs. But as these have from time to time appeared in the TOWN AND COUNTRY JOURNAL, their absence from the present picture is not so much matter of regret. The artist
as been enabled to devote all the more attention to the city itself, and present its chief features on a more extended scale. The wonderful progress New South Wales has made since its first settlement, less than a century ago, is indeed remarkable But the progress of the metropolis is simply an evidence of the prosperity of the country generally. The head cannot prosper unless the body also participates in the prosperity. The following particulars in reference to Sydney will be read with interest :—
Sydney, situated in 33deg 51min south latitude, and 151deg 11min east longitude, is the capital and seat of government of the colony of New South Wales, and also the parent city of Australia. It is picturesquely situated on the southern shore of Port Jackson—named after Sir George Jackson, the then Secretary to the Lords of the Admiralty. It was founded on the 26th January, 1788. by Captain A. Phillip, six days after his arrival in Botany Bay with a fleet of store and transport ships, for the purpose of founding a convict establishment. The new comers ware not allowed to disembark without a pro-test from the sable inhabitants of the soil. The little fleet was met on every point with shouts of defiance from the aboriginals, and cries of " Warra warra !'' —go away—betokened that but little hospitality would be extended to the strangers on landing. The locality chosen for the future city was a delightful spot at the head of what has since been named Sydney Cove, *near a limpid stream of water which has long since been covered in, but which was then, or soon after, known as the Tank Stream. The city proper is situated at a distance of four miles from the mouth of the harbour. The entrance to Port Jackson from the Pacific Ocean is upwards of a mile in breadth, and is well lighted during the night on its southern cliffs, On the South Head, 1¼ mile from the entrance, in 33deg 51min 30sec S. latitude, and 151deg 19min E. lon., is the Macquarie lighthouse, 76ft high, erected on cliffs 268ft above the sea level, visible at 25 miles distance, showing a bright flash every minute and a half. On the Inner South Head is the Hornby Tower, painted in verticle stripes of red and white, with a fixed light, that can be seen from a ship's deck at 15 miles. Vessels drawing as much as 27ft can enter at low water, and in many parts in the city can lie close in shore. This last natural advantage has been greatly utilized, and the water is skirted with wharves, stores, and ware-houses. On the western side, where the shores are a little more precipitous, there is also an unbroken line of wharfage, used mainly by the intercolonial and other large steamers, and by, coasters.
The harbour is not an uniform expanse of water, but is broken up in all directions into capacious open-mouthed bays by the numerous promontories jutting out into it. Those bays are harbours in themselves ; and some of them, principally on the northern side, are the continuation of other harbours or rivers, which are navigable for several miles. The watery indentations that encircle the city allow the very heart of it to be easily reached from the water. There are some features of the city of Sydney which bear a striking resemblance to an English town. Some of the streets are narrow, tortuous, and without any pretentious to modern architecture. The houses are what is best described by the term " an old fashioned look," although of late years much of this has been done away with, and the older portions of the town pulled down to make way for more modern structures. Some of the business premises recently erected in Pitt-street, in George-street, in Bridge street, in York-street, and Wynyard-square, are capacious, elegant, and rank in a high order of architectural merit. The principal streets are laid out to the cardinal points of the compass, and inter-sect each other at right angles. They are designated George, Pitt, Market, King, and Hunter, the leading one being the first-named, which starts from the water's edge, Dawes Point, and runs completely through the city into the country, being called George-street west, when it passes beyond the rail-way station ; the length of streetage in all is about 130 miles, and the number of houses 19,000. The greatest length of the city is 3⅜ miles north and south, and breadth 2⅞ miles east and west, the total area being about 2000 acres.
The modern public buildings of Sydney, as well as the warehouses, banks, and churches, are for the most part elegantly designed and substantially erected edifices. The city and suburbs abound in sandstone, which is easily quarried, capable of being worked into most ornate designs, at little ex-pense, hardens on exposure to the weather, and is of a substantial nature.
The Sydney University, which is built of this stone in the Gothic style of the 15th century, is an elegant building. The great hall is described by Anthony Trollope in the following words : " I think no one will dispute the assertion when I say that the college hall is the finest chamber in the colonies; if I were to say that no college, either at Oxford or Cambridge, possesses so fine a one, I might perhaps be contradicted. I certainly remember none of which the proportions are so good." Its dimensions are 135ft long, 45ft wide, and 73ft high. The building is on a gentle acclivity, and commands a magnificent view. The two affiliated colleges. St. Paul's and St. John's (B.C.), are of the Gothic of the 14th century, and the whole of the University build-ings are surrounded by a large park to which the public have access. St. Andrew's Cathedral, the foundation of which was first laid on July 1, 1819, has been pulled down and re-erected thrice ; now it is a very handsome building with two towers, and also belongs to the Gothic of the 14th century. It is provided with a fine organ.
The Jewish Synagogue, which was completed in 1878, belonging to the Bizantine Order, is also an elegant edifice. The new buildings for Government offices—the Colonial Secretary's and Public Works forming one massive build-ing facing Macquarie and Bridge Streets, and the Crown Lands Offices fronting Bridge Street—are specimens of the skill of the architect which are rarely surpassed for elegance and inexpensiveness of construction. Then there are St. Mary's Cathedral (R.C.), which, after being twice burned, is now in process of re-erection on grander proportions than ever, its projected dimensions being 350ft long, width within transepts 118ft, width of nave and aisles 74ft, height about 90ft ; a central tower will be 120ft high, and two towers with spires at the southern end will rise to an altitude of 260ft—St. Patrick's (R.C.), St. George's, St. John's, St. Philip's, one of the oldest in Sydney, though the present structure if not altogether the original building, St. James's, the old Cathedral Church, opened on January 6, 1822, and about 120 other ecclesiastical buildings, which would not suffer much by comparison with the edifices of older countries. Government House, which belongs to the Tudor style, is delightfully situated and over-looks Farm Cove, or Man-of-War B. The building is surrounded by the Domain and Botanical Garden, and is a delightful place for a vice-regal residence. It is overtopped by " The Garden Palace," where the first International Exhibition of Australia was inaugurated on the 17th September, 1879. This immense building commands from its dome and its balconies a view of the grand scenery which meets the eye at every point in and around the metropolis of New South Wales.
The banks also are imposing buildings, and maybe said to belong to the Florentine, Roman, Italian, and Greek orders of architecture ; they comprise N. S. Wales, Commercial, Australian, Joint-Stock, City, English and Scottish, Australasian, the London Chartered, the Oriental, and the Mercantile Banks. The proprietary of the latter institution during the last year entered into their new building at the corner of George and Margaret streets, which has been purchased, placed in repair, and fitted with alterations at an expense of £25,000. In addition to these the Bank of New Zealand has very creditable
premises.
All these, as well as the Savings Bank, would reflect credit on many of the towns in the mother country. The Exchange buildings are also admired for their beauty and substance of construction. They belong to the Roman Corinthian order. Among other commercial buildings which attract the attention of visitors are the offices of the Australian Mutual Provident Society, the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD office (which is replete with all the appliances of the best London offices, the paper being printed on a Walter machine, similar to that in use in the London TIMES office). The SYDNEY MAIL, published and printed in the same building, is a weekly illustrated journal of a superior character. The structure where the TOWN AND COUNTRY JOURNAL and the EVENING NEWS are issued, is a roomy one, with elegant front. The TOWN AND COUNTRY JOURNAL office is fitted with one of the Victory printing and folding machines, the only one in N. S. Wales, which folds as it prints. This machine is capable of printing and folding 20,000 four-page copies per hour, or 10,000 eight-pages, and was introduced by the late Mr. Samuel Bennett to meet the growing circulation of the TOWN AND COUNTRY JOURNAL—which has a weekly sale of over 30,000 copies. Another Victory has been added for the EVENING NEWS. The buildings of the SYDNEY DAILY TELEGRAPH, at the corner of Barrack and York streets, are also substantial and well-designed. There are also the magnificent warehouses occupied by Messrs. Newton Brothers, the buildings of Messrs. Mason Brothers, Messrs. Bradley Newton and Lamb's Auction Rooms, the warehouses of Messrs. Frazer and Company, of Messrs. Robert Gray and Sons, of Mr. E. Vickery's, of Messrs. Dalton Brothers, in Pitt-street ; also the large warehouses of Messrs. F. Hoffnung and Company, of Messrs. Young and Lark, of Messrs. Horace Woolnough and Company, and several others indicate the large business that is now carried on by importers and manufacturers in New South Wales.
The Post Office is of the Venetian and Florentine Italian order ; it is an imposing edifice, colonnaded on two sides, and described as well adapted for its purpose. It is built of Pyrmont stone, the colonnade being formed of pillars of polished grey granite. It was opened in September, 1874. The Town Hall is of great size, with a tower 200 feet high, and an architectural ornament to the city ; a hall to be used for public entertainments forms part of the design ; this hall will be galleried, and will be 132 feet long by 62 feet wide, and 66 feet high. It occupies the site that was formerly the old burial place when the brilliant future of Sydney was undreamt of. The Museum, on the eastern side of the city, overlooking Hyde Park, is a fine structure, with a bold Grecian front, and is extensively patronised, some 100,000 persons visiting it annually. The treasury is a very good building, of the usual freestone. Then there is the old Exhibition building - in the Paxtonian style—which has been found admirably adapted for local exhibitions—Prince Alfred Hospital, the new Gaiety Theatre, late Guild-hall, in Castlereagh-street, the Protestant Hall, the Parliament Houses, Custom House, the Mint, and others which, though not of elegant design, remind one of the days when George III. was King and Colonel Macquarie Governor. Turning to the private residences, many of them have been erected at enormous expense, and are surrounded with plea-sure grounds and gardens, which, with the natural beauty of the scenery, lends them a charm denied to those of other places.
The public traffic of the city and suburbs is carried on by a large number of hansom cabs, omnibuses, and hackney carriages. A number of four and five-horse American omnibuses afford communication with the extremities of the city and the suburbs, and the water communication between the city and its transmarine, suburbs, Balmain, North Shore, and other localities, is maintained by numerous steam ferry-boats which ply at frequent intervals during the day till midnight. Towards the close of last year tram cars were introduced for conveying passengers from the Redfern railway terminus to the heart of the city in King-street. The experiment has answered so well that the shrill scream of the steam whistle will shortly be heard in many other parts of the city and suburbs.
The streets are lighted with gas at a cost of up-wards of £7154 per annum to the corporation. Sydney has spacious markets in its main thoroughfares, Pitt-street and George-street ; they are usually well stocked with fruits and vegetables of every kind, peaches, apricots, oranges, pine-apples, together with apples, pears, plums, &c., being in profusion during their respective seasons. There are four theatres— Theatre Royal, Queen's, Gaiety, and the Opera House. Notwithstanding the distance from the great centres of high civilisation in the north, Sydney is not only well supported with theatrical stars of all kinds but with English and Italian opera singers! Besides these, the Masonic Hall, Protestant Hall, and the Temperance Hall are used for places of public entertainment.
Although Sydney has few reserves answering to the shrubberied squares of most of the large towns of Great Britain, it has excellent park lands and gardens within its boundaries, easily accessible to the citizens. Hyde Park is a beautiful plateau of 40 acres, nearly in the centre of the city, with a statue to "Albert the Good." The Domain, a charming expanse of park land of 138 acres, is on the north eastern side of Sydney, surrounding the pretty inlet called Farm Cove. Near the main entrance is an excellent bronze statue of Sir Richard Bourke, by Westmacott. The Botanical Gardens embrace 38 acres, and are considered as amongst the finest in the colonies ; as in addition to the immense collection of exotics from every clime, the locality is one of great beauty, encircling the waters of Farm Cove, where the men-of-war belonging to the Australian station are anchored. Here in the Inner Domain, adjoining the Botanical Garden, is situated "The Garden Palace " for the International Exhibition, as already observed. More recently-formed preserves are Prince Alfred Park, 18 acres, and Belmore Park in the South, 10 acres, and a tract of 600 acres on the south-east side named Moore Park. Adjoining the latter ground is the Metropolitan racecourse (Randwick), which has an area of about 202 acres. The course is about 1¼ mile in circumference.
The Circular Quay at the head of Sydney Cove has a length of 1300ft, available for the largest vessels. Several plans have been proposed by the Government to extend the wharfage accommodation, and the reconstruction of the quay upon a new plan has long been projected. The Australasian Steam Navigation Company have expended large sums of money in making offices, wharves, and warehouses on Circular Quay, and all the shipping business of this extensive association is carried on there. The John Elder (s.), and other fine vessels reputed for the rapidity of their voyages to Europe now discharge at the Circular Quay. The extension of the railway to this point, and a good central station, are much wanted, and these improvements will probably be carried out be-fore long. Woolloomooloo Wharf, to the east, is 1200ft long, and was constructed at a cost of £26,000, a large tract of valuable land being reclaimed.
The eastern side of Darling Harbour, which skirts the western side of the city, has its frontage entirely occupied with wharves and quays. Here several steam companies have their stations, and the gas company its large works. On the north from Miller's Point to Dawes's Point (which includes all one end of the city), and thence round the largest headland of the port, the water side is also fully taken up by commercial premises, with the exception of the site at Dawes's Point, on which there is a battery. The works of Messrs. Thomas Rountree and Co., associated with their floating dock, are important. The dock offers every facility for vessels not exceeding 160ft length, and from 500 to 600 tons burden. The Fitzroy Dry Dock at Cockatoo Island, some few miles to the west of the city, is a Government establishment, and originally intended for the repair and overhauling of vessels of the Royal Navy. Vessels of the largest capacity can be taken in without the slightest difficulty, its dimensions being—length 450ft; width, 60ft; depth of water over sill, 21ft. The establishment is well provided with the largest, most powerful, and recently improved kinds of machinery. Other great dock works are those of Messrs. Mort and Co., at Waterview Bay. The dock is 390ft long, with an entrance 68ft wide, and a depth of water over the sill of 19ft 6in. It is partly cut out of the rock, and partly built up very compactly with stone masonry. This dock has taken in vessels of the largest size visiting the port, including that magnificent vessel the Chimborazo. The workshops cover a large area, with a bay front-age of 1500ft, employing when in full work 700 hands. A substantial patent slip is also here available for vessels of 1500 tons. The company undertake forgings up to 7 tons, and castings up to 14 tons. The Australian Steam Navigation Company have very extensive works, with most of the modern appliances for ship-building and repairing, on the western shore of Darling Harbour. In the workshops are employed at times upwards of 250 persons. The slip attached to the works can be used for vessels of 1500 tons burthen, and can take up two steamers at the same time. There have been constructed at these works several steam vessels. The large fleet of the company gives constant employment to the establishment, it being kept in efficient order and thorough repair.
For some time past steps have been taken to place the city in a state of defence, and batteries carrying Armstrong guns of large calibre now protect it in a great measure from attacks from a hostile fleet. These defences have been still further augmented under Col. Scratchley's designs, which were adopted by the Government. The conformation of the shores affords the best facilities for the erection of fortifications, and seawards there is nothing to prevent the city being made practically impregnable. Even now it would be a difficult matter for any ship to run the gauntlet of the numerous guns that could be brought to bear upon it even before entering the heads. A torpedo corps has been established, and an electric apparatus placed at the South Heads, which will throw a light a radius of 15 miles.
The trade of Sydney is considerable, and gives employment to a large fleet of steamers. It is the head-quarters of the Australian Steam Navigation Company, the Pacific mail steamers, the E. and A. mail steamers, the P. and O. steamers, the vessels of the Orient line, and those of Money Wigram ; besides there are always four or five men of war anchored in the harbour. During the year 1878 the number of British and foreign vessels which entered Port Jackson was 1242—589 sailing and 653 steam. The aggregate tonnage was 712,303 tons.
The population of the city proper is estimated at 115,000 ; of the suburbs, 85,000. The water supply of the city is obtained from the Botany and Lachlan swamps. The number of houses in the city and suburbs was estimated in August, 1879, as 26,000. In 1878 the annual value of rateable property was £960,000 at 1s in the pound; estimated extent of roads and streets, 100 miles ; number of ratepayers, 17,140.
The suburbs of Sydney comprise Balmain, on the opposite side of Darling Harbour ; the Glebe adjoining the city, on the south-west ; Newtown, Redfern, Waterloo, all to the south ; Paddington, on the east; Concord, on the south-west ; St George and St Leonards on the north shore of the harbour. Each of these is an independent municipality, and there are other places. Favourite sites for pleasure resort are Athol Gardens, Chowder Bay, Balmoral, Pearl Bay, Clontarf, Coogee, and Botany.
Newspapers :
Morning daily-the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, and the SYDNEY DAILY TELEGRAPH.
Evening Dailies—the EVENING NEWS, the ECHO, DAILY SHIPPING GAZETTE.
Weeklies—the TOWN AND COUNTRY JOURNAL, the SYDNEY MAIL, FREEMAN'S JOURNAL, SYDNEY PUNCH, the AUSTRA-LIAN WITNESS, the WITNESS, the AUSTRALIAN CHURCHMAN, the PROTESTANT STANDARD, the CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, GOVERNMENT GAZETTE (tri-weekly).
Monthlies—the "A.B.C. Railway Guide," CASTNER'S RURAL AUSTRALIAN, the ILLUSTRATED SYDNEY NEWS, the AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL, the AUSTRALIAN, the FREEMASON, the AUSTRALIAN FREEMASON, and the AUSTRALIAN SKETCHER.
Sydney is the seat of a Roman Catholic Archbishop (Dr Vaughan), and of an Anglican Bishop (Dr. Barker), both metropolitans. The leading hotels are the Royal and Petty's, Pfahlert's, the Exchange, and the Oxford. The city is under municipal government, being divided into eight wards, named respectively, Bourke, Brisbane, Cook, Denison, Fitzroy, Gipps, Macquarie, and Phillip, each of which returns three aldermen. It has a fine School of Arts in Pitt-street, with a library of 25,000 volumes, and the public library in Bent-street is largely patronised, and now open on Sundays.
Numerous factories are in full work. The leather works of Messrs. Alderson and Sons cover 3½ acres and employ 500 hands. The factory of Messrs. Wright, Davenport, and Co., at Marrickville, employs 350 hands in the manufacture of boots and shoes. There are 32 clothing factories, employing from 50 to 400 hands each. There are two large steam joinery establishments, the largest of which has 250 men and boys in their employ. The coach factories are also extensive, and splendid cloths are turned out at Vicar's tweed mill. There are also several large foundries and engineering works, in which large castings and every description of mechanical appliances are turned out, even up to locomotive engines for the government railways. The City of Sydney. (1881, January 1).Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1907), p. 20. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70951158
Twenty Golden Years Ago
(FOR THE 'FREEMAN.')
Everything was very gay and fine and splendid in those dear clays of twenty golden yeans ago. Sydney was not then gripped -n the cold hand of dull obstruction apathy Money rippled harmoniously over a pebbly brook-bed of prosperity. Metaphorically men burnt the promissory notes of their enemies as a sacrifice to future fortune. We were celebrating with a perfervid furore the anniversary of our first hundred years of history. Cannon boomed enthusiasm with aggressive -insistence, and squibs and crackers, illumined the purlieus of Wexford-street and outcast Woolloomooloo — and Woolloomooloo was fairly outcast in those prehistoric, remote times. Then, Bohemia was still an impossible 'inland seaport.' Daley and Caddy and Harold Grey wore wont to foregather at the 'Pirate's' a playful name bestowed by the illuminati upon Captain M'Laughlin, who wore a huge black beard and moustache, and spoke in ten or eleven languages. The captain was a vast institution, and ran a wine Bodega, to which Dan O’Connor used some-times to pay a ministerial visit. Holdsworth and Crick and Patsy Bourke were visitants, and were wont there to engage in wordy warfare.
At the time of which the present scribe is writing, ''The Picturesque Atlas Company” was busily engaged in Wynyard square, creating the three, great and beautiful art volumes. Dr. Andrew Garran; LL.D, M.L.C.., and subsequently Vice-President of the Legislative Council, was editor-in-chief, and to my own connection with the 'Freeman's Journal' and the kind offices of Mr. Thomas Butler (then editor of this paper) the offer was made to mo by the 'Atlas' directors, of the associate editorship. The premises of the leading Catholic journal in Australia were practically within a stone's-throw of the large building in Wynyard-square, and friendly communication was continuous. At the 'Freeman's Journal' office, palatially imposing after the quaint and tortuously-staired building in York-street, opposite the old Central Markets (now pulled down), the writer made the acquaintance of a host of brilliant men, among whom he can still count many true and constant friend's. The younger generation had. however, not then arrived. The Roderic Quinns, the E. J. Bradys, and the Henry Lawsons had still to win their spurs.
Victor J. Daley flitted away to Melbourne, there to sojourn for many years. But there were W. B. Dalley and Frank Hutchinson, arid Frank Myers, and John Farrell, and 'Johnny' Hunt ('The Flaneur') and many, many others, some of whom have, alas! passed behind the veil. Dear old William J. Tarplee, J. W. Lambie, 'Jack' Soley, and 'Tommy' Elwell were then on the 'Sydney Morning Herald ' ; Hugh Mahon (now a member of the Federal Parliament), 'Jack' Danks, and Ernest Blackwell, on the 'Daily Telegraph' ; Terry was on the 'Evening News'; Harold Grey or Theodore Argles (otherwise 'The Pilgrim'), J. O'Brien, Victor J. Daley, John Warde, and F. J. Donohue ('Arthur Gayll') were all writing for 'The Bulletin.'
Frank Hutchinson is today the doyen of the Sydney press; twenty years ago he was one of the most notable men in the city. He often collaborated with Frank Myers, notably in the production of a History of the Soudan Contingent, which went campaigning in Africa in 1885. But Myers, brilliant, eloquent, and versatile as he was, never inspired the affection which seemed to irradiate the footsteps of the other Frank. Myers was more admired than loved. He lacked that abundant sympathy with which his confrere wais full to overflowing. Young Hutchinson was only nineteen years of age when he first came to Sydney— as was Daley also, who was albeit a much younger man. The ''Doyen' comes of a fine did literary family, and had for aunt that highly-cultured and sweet natured Mary Hutchinson, who wedded the poet Wordsworth. It is one of the inspiring reminiscences of Frank Hutchinson's infancy, that often he sat upon the knees of one dalesmen's poet and had his head caressed by the hand which penned 'The Excursion' besides some of the noblest sonnets in our British tongue. Frank Fowler (of the Sydney 'Month') was wont to boast in the brave days of old that he easily made a thousand sterling per annum as a journalist — unattached. But this was Frank Hutchinson's actual experience. It is over forty years since Hutchinson began to ply his pen for a livelihood, and for many years of that period he contributed from week to week, and from day to day, reams upon reams of racy comment, caustic satire, and weighty, pregnant editorial matter both to the daily and the weekly press. A valued and valuable leader writer in the columns of 'The Freeman's Journal,' he was also the life and soul of an evening paper now no longer in the land of the living, namely, the 'Echo,' of which for long doughty Frank Brewer, who was later succeeded by T. B. Clegg, was editor. Hutchinson, who is still alive and in the vigorous enjoyment of perfect health, has a shear of memories of the older days absolutely Mount Morganic in richness and inexhaustibility, he had the friendship of many friends and the acquaintances of many enemies.
He came into close and various contact with such notabilities as Henry Parkes, W. B. Dalley, Edward Butter, Q.C., Daniel Henry Deniehy, Henry Clarence Kendall, among a multitude of others. The world of a past Sydney he has read like the characters in an open book, but the man with whom, probably he was most closely associated was Frank Myers, a writer of very exceptional gifts. It is worthy of note that on the occasion of the celebration of the jubilee of the Fort-street Superior and Training School, the Ode was written by Frank Hutchinson, and was performed in recitative and choral parts by, the two thousand or so scholars of the institution. It is a splendid and lengthy work and fittingly commemorates the founders of the school, namely, John Hubert Plunkett, Sir Charles Nicholson, and William Sharpe Macleay.
Frank Hutchinson's fid us Achates and collaborateur in historical writing, Francis Myers, was as delicate a craftsman in the art of sentence-making as Benvenuto Cellini in that of cutting a cameo. Nothing that he touched did he not dignify. With the glamour of his style he could decorate a dingy hen-coop till it glittened as an Eastern palace of marble in the rays of a tropic moon ; or he could burnish with resplendent adjectives a piece of orange-peel in a slum gutter and make it blaze in the sunrays as imperial gold. Among much other work, Myers put forth two novels, 'Abisag, the Sunamite' and 'The Flame Tree.' the first a romance founded on a Scriptural subject, the second a story of Australia. But he wrote much — his pen tereatted of prospectuses of land sales and permutated to pantomime. He was poet, critic, leader and descriptive article and story writer, biographer, picture appraiser, and theatrical first-nighter — everything in turns as a literary craftsman, besides being a brilliant conversationalist and an .enthusiastic clubman. He died only the other day while en route to Kosciusko, 'the Moscow of ours,' as he somewhat magniloquently phrased it. He was a better prophet than he either hoped or anticipated to be, for like many another of the Old Guard, he perished in the snow-track before sight of the city was won by his veteran's eye. In Frank Myer we lost one of the most eloquent of descriptive writers, if not 'the' most eloquent that we ever possessed in Australia.
W. B. Dalley was, of course, a great man — a great orator, a great journalist, great advocate and (although there be those who deny it) a great statesman. Most particularly, however, he was a great friend. He was a soother of dying pillows, a replenishes of empty purse, and a filler of empty stomachs. He was the Maecenas, the friend, the encourager, the helper of the man of letters, an unfailing staff in the days of need to the poet. Deniehy, Kendall, Farrell: all of them, and each in turn, were glad recipients of his bounty, hearkeners to his heartening voice. The writer has a pleasant reminiscence on this connection. Farrell was away up in the Blue Mountains battling along against adverse circumstances with a paper called the 'Lithgow Mercury,' at a time when every sovereign was worth more than a battery of artillery to a Napoleon might have been on an Austrian battlefield. Well, 'The Picturesque Atlas' folk had oceans of capital — much more capital than poetical appreciation — and Farrell, being my very good friend, I was anxious to devise something which might possibly help a poet out of a difficulty, and provide, ways and immediate means. As associate editor of the 'Atlas'' it occurred to me that a grand introductory poem from Farrell's pen would be a quite admirable way of encompassing several things at once and the same moment, of aiding Farrell, and of increasing the artistic value of the 'Atlas.' There was, however, very little hope of carrying the matter into being. As I before hinted, the directors were all purely business men — which means that poetry was not included in any manner in their calculation of dividends. Dr. Garran was, fortunately, very human, but most poetically critical. Moreover, he did not know, and had never met the poet Farrell. So when I suggested to him the desirability of an introductory Farrellian poem, he said simply: 'I leave it to you. I do not know anything about Mr. Farrell. You must talk to the managing director!' This, of course, would have been a hopeless business, absolutely foredoomed to failure. But I thought of something.
The 'Atlas' directors wanted the use of Dalley 's influential name for all that it was worth — at that day a truly princely asset. To the very last limit of manoeuvering they employed every art of deference and flattery to induce him to write a page or two for them. The great man would not, however, be drawn; .although, when, at a later date, Ernest Blackwell and a few friends put forth the 'Centennial Magazine,' Dalley was good enough to lend it his prompt and powerful assistance with a page or two of some pleasantly-writing 'Penseee.' But to return to Farrell's poem: The Managing Director of the 'Atlas voted especially to the promotion of a lively trade in sewing- machines, knew less about Farrell and about poetry than did Dr. Garran; and this is where my thought of Dalley's influence came in; I knew it would work wonders. I called on our statesman in his castle by the sea, 'Marinella' — a medieval fortress in miniature, terrible with arms and armour, menacious with suits of mail, and resplendent with battle-axes and the burnished weapons of a day that is no more. A quiet suggestion evoked from him a hearty response in the form of a letter which I was able to place before the Board of Directors, and the outcome was Farrells noble poem, entitled 'Australia,' for which (with Dalley's invaluable and influential assistance) he received the not unwelcome sum of £60. Dalley was, however, a very old and consistent friend to Farrell. Long before the poet had taken to journalism as a means of livelihood — when, indeed, lie was earning his family's crust as a brewer — he was wont to send to a few literary publications, of which 'The Freeman's Journal' was one, verses of varying calibre, few of which had not, previously been submitted to the great little man of Manly. I met Farrell for the first time quite a while before he had forsaken his vats entirely for his verses, and ceased to delight Queanbeyan with topical satire. Perhaps it was about the end of 1886, or the beginning of 1887, that Farrell brought out 'How He Died,' and other poems (Turner and Henderson), and William Bede Dalley wrote a highly enthusiastic criticism the thereof in the 'Sydney Morning Herald. He hailed the new poet as in Australian Bret Harte, and lauded the poetical gilts of Queanbeyan's popular brewer so warmly that Farrell was bath prompted and enabled to embark on a literary life.
One concluding anecdote about Farrell: It is a fitting conclusion to his life as a brewer — hospitable and generous-hearted. It was on a New Year’s Eve, and the entire township turned out to greet their favourite citizens. Among others, the home of Farrell was visited. It was a two-storeyed house, and overlooked the roadway. It was midnight, or thereabout, and Farrell was on the eve of retiring. The crowd clamoured vociferously. Etiquette demanded that those called upon should stand treat. The poet came to the railing of the balcony and called into the night with generous gusto: 'All right, boys! You know I don't drink anything myself. But there are the keys of the brewery. Go down and help yourselves.' Amid the hurrahs of the crowd the keys jangled on the roadway.
Who can forget dear old 'P. J.'. He was an Elizabethan folio bound up in a modern frock coat, with a rosebud boutonniere lettering. Holdsworth, Ednie-Brown, and 'Tommy'' Elwell were inseparable in the old days when forestry was a department of the State, and not a neglected national asset. Nobody thought of calling the Poet Holdsworth other than 'P.J.' He was a very dear fellow; with a beautifully kind temperament, and an unruffable temper. He was, moreover, a fine bit of picturesqueness in a dull and unconventional world. For 'P.J' everybody had a huge and splendid affection — an affection unpurchasable by ducats or doubloons. Ho was a dandy of an ancient day, faultlessly attired always; punctiliously courteous to an extent embarrassing!; urbane in the highest degree of a marked distinction. His tightly-fitting and closely-buttoned frock-coat was ample in its proud imposing splendour touching almost the glowing boot tops of his shining patent leathers. His silk hat was immaculate, chaste in design, and as polished as a poem. His boutonniere was a dream of floral daintiness. His Malacca cane was adorned with the massive gold knob of a French marshal's baton. His style of beard-wearing was Shakespearean, after the mode of the Stratton-on-Avon bust, and his Elizabethan cast of features was an inspiration and a joy. 'P.J.' liked nothing better than to seize upon a crony of assured friendship and true artistry, no matter how thronged the thoroughfare, and to strike an attitude, as that, say, of Napoleon addressing the deputies on the great day of the eighteenth Brumaire, putting one hand into the bosom of his coat, holding with the other a coat-button of his vis-a-vis, and reciting his latest poetical tribute to his Queen of Dreams, or some other imaginary goddess of his adoration. He was a fine fellow, 'P.J.. with a true and emphatic gift of creative genius, albeit no great poet ; and his heart was as golden in sympathetic generosity as it was red with generous sympathy. As a writer of verse, 'Quis Separabit' touches as highest water-mark; but he wrote besides other fine verse, distinguished as much by gracefulness of phrase as by felicity of fancy. He was a scholar and a life-long student who had bathed in the Helicon fountain of Hippocrene, and steeped his soul and head and heart in the noble literature poured with lavish hands by Shakespeare and the mighty brood who graced and glorified the great and spacious days of Queen Elizabeth. P. J. Holdsworth was, by the way, a contributor to the 'Freeman's Journal,' as were so many or the leading litterateurs of Sydney, before as well as since a score of years ago. Peace to his ashes and honour to his memory. He left a multitude of friends, and hardly an enemy behind him.
When he came to Sydney Farrell struck up a close friendship with Holdsworth. This was inevitable, for they were the veritable likeness one of the other. The writer has given his impression of Holdsworth, the courtier. Farrell, the brewer, was his downright opposite. His clothes fitted him as would a sack a scarecrow. He cared for none of the trifles of life. Hearty, loud-voiced, humorous, exaggerative, Farrell filled the office of his paper with the great vastness of the genii confined by Solomon in the fisherman's vase. When he first went to the 'Daily Telegraph' as editor (when the paper had the Single Tax fever) he dressed him in purple and fine linen; or, rather, he donned a hat of the kind known as 'belltopper,' a frock-coat, together with all the fittings and appurtenances of a properly laid-out citizen of influence and affluence. But Farrell had no fancy for cigars of select brand, and would stand in King-street, 'belltopper,' frock-coat, and all the gorgeous rest of it, cutting away at a plug of 'ruby' tobacco with a brown-handled clasp-knife, and filling a meerschaum pipe with a bowl as big as the barber's basin in the immortal romance of Don Quixote. Farrell' s hands were always richly and rarely stained with nicotine essence, and after a hearty hand-grip his interviewer would carry away with him the odour of a vast Virginian plantation. But Farrell was a good soul, with a heart that matched his voice, and his voice was mighty and resonant as a brass band out for a holiday. Farrell had two distinctly Farellian characteristics — we will not call them failings; he never knew when to cease quotation when once he began quote a favourite poet, and he never knew when to cease writing once he began to write verse.
P. E. Quinn belongs to those days of twenty golden years ago. Quinn it was who introduced the present writer to dear old 'Tom' Butler — that sterling friend to many of Sydney's knights of the pen, and brother to the brilliant and gifted Edward. 'Paddy,' as his friends' called the elder of the two literary Quinns, was a splendid and audacious personage at that time, and quite unspoiled by Parliament. The younger Quinn (Roderic) was only a lad then, perhaps about seventeen years of age.
Henry Lawson's first verse appeared, perhaps, about the beginning of 1887. Brady, also, was awaiting the clang of the call-bell. Well does the writer recall, however, that tall human construction, which he has heard described as the 'Gothic' Tarleton (a Bachelor of Laws, by the way), who was wont to perambulate the city like a Tuscan companile torn by violent seismic shock from its pedal fastenings in the solid granite. J. G. O'Ryan, another barrister in those days, was also often to be seen in the offices of the 'Freeman's Journal'; to say nothing of the brilliant Thomas Chrysostom O'Mara (a onetime member for Monaro in our Parliament), and the no less brilliant but loss meteoric 'Dick' O'Connor (now of the Federal High Court), the ponderous and genial and able Sir Patrick Jennings, the Rev. John Milne Curran (to whom geology is a joke and mineralogy a jeu d'esprit), old Hary P. Mostyu (with his eternal red neckerchief), Francis Joseph Donohue (a cultured master of golden phrasing), William Eliard (who, as 'Timothy Fogarty' wrote reams of reminiscence and recountal of old time incident), J. Sheridan Moore (who not unworthily united in his own the names of two great literary Irishmen), Michael Mullins M'Ginr (with the features of an elderly cupid — a one-time part-proprietor), J. A. Delany (greatest of all Australian-taught musicians, and the remarkable Harold Grey (leanest and lightest of journalists). Delany was a very good all around man. Apart from his music, he was a thorough scholar, capable critic, and ready winter. His wit, humour, and power of repartee were of the first order. In tire company of the writer Delany was one evening walking home to Rushcutters’s Bay. A tramp solicited alms with a breath which would have advertised Farrell's Queanbeyan brewerythroughout a suburb. Delany, turning to the writer, inquired if the latter had any money, and being met with a negative, turned to the stranger, gravely proffering him his visiting-card, with the remark: 'Neither my friend nor I am in funds; but come to this address at 9 o'clock to-morrow morning, and I will give you two pianoforte lessons for nothing.'
FRED. J. BROOMFIELD.
Twenty Golden Years Ago. (1907, December 12). Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 53. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108037690
A Story of the Deep.
The talk within the tavern ran
On perils of the sea ;
Then rose a weather- beaten man
With glass in hand said he :.
"To all brave mariners I drink
Good luck, and port secure,
For little do we landsmen think
What perils they endure.
I mind a voyage I was on
About a year ago ;
I thought the blessed ship was gone,
So hard the wind did blow.
The storm came like a demon down
A deadly howling gale ;
With fear that they would swiftly drown
The passengers were pale.
And venerable age was there, -
And youth so bright and gay,
But none could offer up a prayer
They had no heart to pray.
Dumb cattle also stood aboard
In terrified surprise.
Poor beasts they never said a word,
But stared with speechless eyes.
All eyes were on the captain brave;
His mouth was set and grim.
We knew he'd try the ship to save,
But none dare speak to him.
Then came a fearful wave and dire
I thought I should have died
It struck the boat and strained the wire
That yawned three yards aside.
But our good captain, tho' the punt
Was shook in ev'ry joint,
His passengers did safely shunt
Upon Tom Ugly's Point.
To all brave mariners I drink
Good luck and port secure,
For little do we landsmen think
What perils they endure."
CREEVE ROE. A Story of the Deep. (1919, December 23).The Tumut Advocate and Farmers and Settlers' Adviser (NSW : 1903 - 1925), p. 3 (CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article112269901
VICTOR JAMES DALEY
Victor James Daley was born on September 5, 1858, at Navan, in Ireland. He was brought up by his grandparents in county Armagh, and at an early age was sent to school at Devonport, in England. When 16 years of age he entered the employ of the Great Western 'Railway but after three years' service he migrated to Australia, arriving in Sydney early in 1878. From Sydney he went to Adelaide, where he found work as a clerk. Thence he drifted to Melbourne and became a journalist. He tramped to Queanbeyan, near Canberra, where he edited a paper for five months. In 1881 he returned to Sydney, and began to contribute to Sydney Punch and to the Bulletin. Four years afterwards he returned to Melbourne, and for the next 13 years his life was one constant struggle against poverty. In 1898 his first volume of verse, At Dawn and Dark, was published in Sydney. As the result Daley was offered an appointment as clerk in one of the New South Wales Government departments. He accepted the post, but routine duties did not appeal to him, and he again resumed his journalistic work. In 1902 his health broke down, and his friends sent him on a voyage to the South Seas. After a long illness he died of phthisis at Waitara, near Sydney, on December 29, 1905.
His second volume, Wine and Roses was published in 1911. It has been written of Daley that his work was unique in the Australian poetry of his time. The bush had little charm for him, except as a sunny and temporary refuge when city life grew too strenuous; and three-fourths of his verse might have been written anywhere in the world, except for the perpetual glow of sunlight through it. That, and the inspiration to seek romance in the present, which vivifies his first book, were Australia's gifts to him; in the posthumous volume it has disappeared, to be replaced by a glamour of past romance that is purely Irish. Regarded simply as poetry, his work, at its best, was probably the best done in Australia in the period. VICTOR JAMES DALEY (1927, October 30). Sunday Mail (Brisbane) (Qld. : 1926 - 1954), p. 20. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article99920358
SURFING AND CELEBRITIES.
Manly 'S Augustan Age.
(By C.R.C.)It is an aspect of the eternal fitness of things that surfing, perhaps the most virile and most health-giving of all our sports, should have originated, as far as Australia is concerned, in a seaside village called Manly. So popular has the sport become that it is hard to realise that the right to surf was hardly won, and that it is barely thirty years since at was first admitted. Recent references to the origin of surfing, while substantiality correct, require a certain amount of amendment.
At a Sydney reunion of pioneer members of the Royal Life Saving Society, it was stated that there is still a law on the Statute Book of New South Wales which forbids bathing in view, of the public and that this law was challenged, in 1904, by ‘Mr. W H Goucher,' with the result that an agitation in favour of bathing followed and the law has never since been enforced, the village Hampden referred to was Mr. W. H. Goacher (not Goucher) who, at the time, was editor of the local paper unless my memory is sadly at fault (and I was one of the crowd of spectators who aided and abetted him). Goacher was prosecuted in 1903 for the breach of a regulation framed under the Police Offences Act. Though fined in the Water Police Court, Mr. Goacher declared that he would continue to bathe in proper costumes and it was then discovered that the Police Regulation was ultra vires. It was to this, and not to any magnanimity en the part of the authorities, that Sydney people owe their right to surf. - At that time, Manly occupied a narrow isthmus and though it was still affectionately referred to as 'The Village.' it had already commenced to sprawl across the heights to the north and south. The first six years of the present century might aptly be termed the Augustan Age of Manly. Even before the ban on surfing had been lifted, men and boys were allowed to bathe on the Ocean Beach before seven in the morning. Like Wolley’s 'little wanton boys' we youngsters would enter the water, clad only in ‘trunks'. The official who used to chase us shorewards after seven was, appropriately enough, the municipal council's inspector of nuisances, and we wanton little boys saw to it that his job was no sinecure.
Even before the dawn of the century, Manly, had been the home of giants. Cardinal Moran's Palace and the College for the training of Roman Catholic priests towered on the southern heights. On the northern ' height was the ibid home of W. B. Dalley, built in the form of an English castle, and still called 'Dalley Castle,' though it has passed out of the hands of the Dalley family many years since; Its builder, W. B. Dalley, the father of the novelist J. B. Dalley, was a distinguished lawyer and politician who was prominent in the trial of the bushrangers and who was responsible for the sending of a contingent from New South Wales to the Sudan. It was stated at the time that a little boy in Manly had donated the contents of his money box to the patriotic fund raised in connection with the contingent. At all events, following an amount in a published subscription list, were the words 'A Little Boy |from Manly.' Political opponents said that the little boy was none other than W. B. Dalley himself, and the incident provided the Sydney 'Bulletin' with one of those stock mythical figures which were the delight of our fathers and grandfathers. Sir Edmund Barton, afterwards Prime Minister of Australia and a Justice of the High Court, was another well known resident of The Village during the Nineties.
Forlorn Hopes.
It was just after ;the Boer war that W. B. Goacher commenced to edit a paper called 'The Manly News.' He was one of those lovable fire-eaters whose lifetime was spent in the fighting of forlorn hopes. He was more an artist than a journalist, and not very successful in painting or writing as, in looking after the interests of others, he neglected his own. Certainly, as the Sydney speaker said, surf clubs throughout Australia should do something to perpetuate his memory. He has yet another .claim to distinction. He was Manly's first Labour candidate. There had been a redistribution of seats in New South Wales, and Manly, formerly part of Wahringah, became part of the constituency then called Middle Harbour. In 1904, just after the redistribution, Goacher: came out as a candidate for Middle Harbour. His campaign was of the whirlwind variety. His meetings were always crowded. His oratory, and gift for repartee provided entertainment for the masses, but he; polled only thirty-three votes. The handicap of a tall hat and a frock coat was too great for a Labour candidate to carry in those days. Next week, in his paper, he returned thanks to 'the thirty-three intelligent electors of Middle Harbour. Poor Goacher's finances were never in a healthy condition and the loss of his deposit ruined him. He disposed of his paper to “Billy” Melville and went to live in Sydney.
Melville was one of the older school of Bulletin writers. He sang the praises of Manly in season and out of season. It was probably through his personal influence that Victor Daley and Henry Lawson came to live in 'The Village. I think Roderick Quinn lived there for a little while also. Quinn, if not an actual resident, was a frequent visitor to the others. I remember how we awe-struck youngsters used to gaze at the four poets strolling down the street arm in arm— and taking its width in their stride. One of Daley's, sons was enrolled as a pupil at the Manly Public School. When asked his father's occupation young Daley replied 'writer,' and the headmaster who was a Master of Arts and an honours man in literature cheerfully wrote 'signwriter' in the school admission register.
It was through Melville, that I came to meet both Lawson and Daley. I knew Daley the better of the two. Lawson could not remain long in any place, and while in Manly he met with a peculiar accident. While strolling along the Fairy Bower cliffs, he fell over the rim and broke a few ribs. The usual people said the usual thing about the accident, but I honestly believe that in his absent-mindedness Lawson walked too near the edge and overbalanced. Daley, though a severe critic, was a kindly one. I once had the temerity to call at his house and show him a short story I had written. The place was almost unfurnished, but Daley received me as though he were conducting me into a palace. Incidentally he tore the story to shreds, which embarrassed me considerably because there was another man present, a grim silent looking man whom I thought must be some distinguished editor. I found out afterwards that he was a bailiff. Daley made me sit down there and then and rerwrite the story. The next day, he took me up to Sydney and personally introduced me to the editor of the Bulletin, who also said scathing things about the story — but printed it.
Various Arts.
All the arts were represented, in Manly during those years. Hilder had lived there for many years - even at that time, and was painting his delicate water-colours and battling against ill-health and genteel poverty. Charlie Bryant was still a schoolboy but was just beginning to make a name for himself in black and white work. W.H. Whiddon, afterwards Deputy Commissioner for Taxation in New South Wales, used to gather the aspiring vocalists of the village and drill them in light opera. As a choir-master and a producer of Gilbert and Sullivan operas, he did much to raise the standards of musical taste, not only in Manly, but throughout the whole State. Another notable resident was an exponent of an older and even more individual art. This was Larry Foley, the veteran pugilist. Somewhere about 1904, he established a boxing academy at his residence on the cliffs overlooking the Manly Lagoon. He gathered round him quite a school of fighting, neophytes but none of them achieved fame. Old Larry, it was said, had become crotchetty in his old age and very Spartan in his methods of instruction. If he did not think a pupil worth bothering about any further, a knock out blow ended that pupil's course of training and inclined him towards another career. For a season or two Larry's square stocky figure and his mutton chop whiskers were frequently seen on the promenade. It was a sight for the gods to see him and his great friend and fellow-Hibernian, the genial Dan O'Conner, disporting in the breakers. They were two of the few Manly great ones who remained distinguished looking in bathers. Dan O'Connor had ended his political career by that time. He provided the Bulletin with another of that paper's stock phrases. While Postmaster-General of New South Wales he had to decide upon the appointment of a minor official in his department; There were many applicants, several of whom were strongly recommended. The P.M.G. decided the matter in a laconic and- phonetic minute-— 'Appoint Maloney.' And Maloney was appointed. He habitually wore the tall hat and frock coat of the period, and his flowing white beard would have been the envy of any Druids’ lodge. But to see him rising from the waves, in his red and blue striped bathers, with that avalanche of whiskers wet and bedraggled, was to obtain an idea of what Father Neptune must have looked like. Though a politician, he was a patron of the arts. He it was who spoke at Sydney's welcome to a famous French actress, and referred to the guest as 'La Belly Franzase.' SURFING AND CELEBRITIES. (1933, February 18). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32585829
Behind the name of J.F. Archibald
To most who read of the Dobell portrait controversy and law suit over the Archibald Prize, to nearly all who looked up at the Archibald Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park, Sydney, the donor, J. F. Archibald, was only a name. Even then there was doubt on what his full name was. J. F. Archibald was Jules Francois in the Australian Encyclopaedia and in John's Notable Australians. But he was christened John Feltham (his godfather's surname). Early in life he adopted the French forenames instead. His mother, who died when he was seven, was of French and Jewish blood. His father was an English sergeant of police. He was born at Kildare, near Geelong (Vic.) in 1856. He went to a Catholic school in Warrnambool (Vic.), became a printer's apprentice and compositor on the local paper, subsequently a junior reporter on Melbourne's now long defunct Daily Telegraph. He was also a clerk In Melbourne, a bookkeeper in Rockhampton, an actor with a touring troupe, a cattle-drover, and a gold prospector before he came to Sydney, and on the Evening News met another reporter, John Haynes.
Archibald and Haynes produced, for a proprietary, a Catholic weekly, the Express. Given the use of this press, they also brought out an eight-page weekly, crude in its first production, but characterised by a fresh and pungent style. That was The Bulletin, founded in 1879. Archibald described the Sydney of 1879 as "ridden with the horrible cant of the badly reformed sinner. There was no health in the public spirit . . . Sydney socially limped in apeish imitation after London ideas, habits, manners. Sydney invited revolt from existing conditions, and The Bulletin was the organ of that revolt." The Bulletin wanted "more humanity in the laws, more freedom in the Parliament, more healthy independence in the Press." "The Father of the Radical Press in Australia" Archibald was dubbed by writer Fred Bloomfield, who also called him "a stalwart Republican (Archibald believed Australia should cut loose from England and be-come a Republic), an uncompromising Democrat, a root-and-branch Radical, a stern judge of Judges," and a protagonist of "practical Socialism." He was socially ostracised at the time of Queen Victoria's Jubilee.
During the Boer War he denounced Britain's "aggression" and advocated Boerland for the Boers. He opposed unrestricted Chinese immigration, Japanese , "peaceful penetration" and black kanaka labor on the Queensland canefields. An ardent, opponent of capital punishment, young Archibald travelled in the same coach as the hang-man to report a country hanging for the Evening News. When the coach stopped at a roadside inn he took the hangman's rope and hid it in the bush. (The hangman had to sit up all night greasing another rope.) Landed in gaol Haynes soon left The Bulletin, his interest bought out by the cartoonist- William MacLeod, and founded the Newsletter. W. H. Traill came into the editor's chair, which Archibald resumed when Traill went into politics. Traill wrote an article describing as a saturnalia of vice scenes at a public house near Clontarf Beach, where larrikins and their donahs revelled at weekends. The publican sued, got only contemptuous damages, but the costs were beyond The Bulletin and both (Hayne) Traill and Archibald landed in gaol. From the debtors' cells of Darlinghurst prison, where Archibald assiduously subbed copy, they were rescued by politician George Dibbs and public subscription. Public sympathy was theirs, and the case publicised The Bulletin, boosted its sales. "Frail, nervy , mercurial, intellectually arrogant, full of likeable little vanities, a witty and informative talker," was the description of Archibald by Mrs. William Macleod, whose husband came to own three-quarters of The Bulletin and shared his interest with Archibald.
Archibald became a tireless prospector of what he called "Australia's literary alluvial." From a pigskin bag crammed with copy he took home each night, Archibald would rake out on the ferry to Manly, where he lived, a short story by Randolph Bedford, a ballad of Banjo Paterson's or a Henry Lawson verse, one of Roderic Quinn's or Edwin Brady's. Or it might be something by Victor Daley, Ted Dyson, "Price Warung" or John Farrell. Or a drawing by a young artist he had just discovered, Norman Lindsay. Phil May and Livingstone Hopkins (Hop) were brought out to The Bulletin by Traill. The paragraphs sent in from gold-field, shearing shed and cattle camp Archibald sub-edited and rewrote with polish and pungency, ending them whenever he could with a pithy phrase "like the crack of a stock whip." He boasted that the only good thing he threw into the wastepaper basket was a small dog that had been brought into the office. "Great sub-editor" The Bulletin wrote of Archibald — whose greatness as an editor is generally conceded — when he died in 1919, aged 64: "He was a great editor within his limitations; but he was a great sub-editor without any limitations whatever. ... it is doubtful whether he was responsible for half-a-dozen leading articles in all his years. But he wrote 10,000 pungent lines, and made phrases as other men make good resolutions."
Of the Bulletin, Randolph Bedford, one of its notable contributors, wrote in an autobiography just published in Sydney (Currawong Press): "The Bulletin . . . for 35 years was known as the Bushman's Bible. . . . The Bulletin kept its youth up to 1914 or so. . . . Then it began to fall away to what it is: chorus and echo: fatty-brained and dull; its youth and spirit departed." No seat, no book Colorful, and sometimes contradictory, are the sidelights on Archibald's character:
* An ardent political reformer, he "refused a seat in the Legislative Council before the messenger from George Reid could sit down." * He hated the chewing-gum habit, but habitually chewed pieces of paper, scissor-snipped from the margins of proofs.
* Though The Bulletin was started as a literary paper, Archibald took considerable persuading by A G. Stephens to introduce the Red Page.
* He had a mental breakdown in 1902 and Archibald was regarded as finished. Yet he recovered most of his powers and became, literary editor of Smith's Weekly a few months before his death.
He died planning The Lone Hand magazine (later produced), of which he said:. "Its politics will' be sun-shine, good cookery and red um-brellas. ... Its religion, the conservation of public health and the adornment of homes of the people."
Archibald left £89,061. As well as providing for the Archibald Prize for artists, the memorial fountain by a French sculptor to celebrate the World War I alliance of France and Australia for liberty, he left money for cancer research, hospitals, the Benevolent Fund of the Australian Journalists' Association, and a fund "to buy tobacco for the inmates of Warrnambool Benevolent Asylum." A well-known artist tells of visiting his home, where Archibald took the visitor into his study, removed boots and socks, put his feet up and, with a long churchwarden pipe held between, his toes, kept up a flow of brilliant conversation. The senator stayed with his cows (1944, November 12). The Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), p. 4 (SUPPLEMENT TO THE FACT). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229265459
'Bard'.
The pre-Christian Celtic peoples recorded no written histories; however, Celtic peoples did maintain an intricate oral history committed to memory and transmitted by bards and filid. Bards facilitated the memorisation of such materials by the use of metre, rhyme and other formulaic poetic devices. In medieval Gaelic and British culture, a bard was a professional story teller, verse-maker and music composer, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or noble), to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.
Originally a specific, lower class of poet, contrasting with the higher rank known as fili in Ireland and Highland Scotland, with the decline of living bardic tradition in the modern period the term "bard" acquired generic meanings of an author or minstrel, especially a famous one. For example, William Shakespeare, and Rabindranth Tagore, are known as "the Bard of Avon" and "the Bard of Bengal" respectively. Compare Troubadore - a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word troubadour is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz.
The troubadour school or tradition began in the late 11th century in Occitania, but it subsequently spread into Italy and Spain. Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout Europe: the Minnesang in Germany, trovadorismo in Galicia and Portugal, and that of the trouvères in northern France. Dante Alighieri in his De vulgari eloquentia defined the troubadour lyric as fictio rethorica musicaque poita: rhetorical, musical, and poetical fiction. After the "classical" period around the turn of the 13th century and a mid-century resurgence, the art of the troubadours declined in the 14th century and eventually died out around the time of the Black Death (1348).
The texts of troubadour songs deal mainly with themes of chivalry and courtly love. Most were metaphysical, intellectual, and formulaic. Many were humorous or vulgar satires. Works can be grouped into three styles: the trobar leu (light), trobar ric (rich), and trobar clus (closed). Likewise there were many genres, the most popular being the canso, but sirventes and tensos were especially popular in the post-classical period, in Italy and among the female troubadours, the trobairitz. Troubadore - a French medieval lyric poet composing and singing in Provençal in the 11th to 13th centuries, especially on the theme of courtly love or chivalry.
The Tourist.
Our Pleasure Trip To The Hawkesbury.
By Grandmamma.
' If, sick of home and luxuries, you want a new sensation,
And sigh for the unwonted ease of unaccommodation—
If you would taste, as amateur and vagabond beginner,
The painful pleasures of the poor, get up a picnic dinner!'
Such was the advice of Horace Smith in days of old, when we were young, and rather failed to appreciate his pleasant sarcasm. But as years go on, and the romance of youth goes off. in company with lissomness of limb and elasticity of spirit, his words of wit and wisdom find readier echo in our thoughts, and 'The days when we went gipsying, a long time ago.' assume a somewhat fabulous halo —even a lunar halo— as they are pictured in our sane and sober elderly memories. A recent experience of our own suggests a variation on the above-quoted verse :
If, sated with the loveliness of Sydney's peerless haven
You covet sight of other scenes more rugged and unshaven—
If steamers swift and clean and trim you value not a stiver.
But like them slow, and black and grim, go up the Hawkesbury River!
We did, and as a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals I am constrained to say to all who may think of doing likewise, 'Don't' — until a thorough reformation and rearrangement in the modes of transit be effected. On last Friday afternoon, our small party of three, viz., Mr. and Mrs. B ? and 'Grandmamma,' steamed pleasantly to Manly Beach in the Fairlight, in time to 'catch the coach' for Newport, as prescribed in our sailing directions. These assured us that the trip was always accomplished in the easiest and pleasantest manner, and that we should arrive in town on Saturday evening. How delusive these promises proved will be seen hereafter. Two rough vehicles were in waiting at Manly, and we scrambled into the better looking of the twain, drawn by four horses, to be immediately taken to task and roundly rated in no measured terms by the driver of the two-horse machine for not going in his coach and to his 'hotel,’ he seeming to claim a monopoly of all Hawkesbury-bound passengers, whether he had room for them or not. Dire and dismal were the threats he hurled at us, and which rumbled in our rear as our good-humoured 'whip' drove off with us. The road was good, and glimpses of grand shore cliffs and headlands, and bits of lovely unspoiled ' bush,' bright with exquisite native flowers (which, alas, we might not stay to gather and delight in), pleasantly beguiled the way, and softened many a jolt ; whilst the discovery that two other lady passengers (visitors) were friends of mutual friends in various parts of Australia made a cheery, chatty quintette of the performance which had begun as a trio. 'Crack went the whip, round went the wheels, Were never folks more glad. They told the deeds of long ago, And merry tales and sad.'
Presently we splashed through a wide lagoon, looking, or at any rate intending to look, as though we found it quite an agreeable incident, but holding on tightly all the same, and hailing our return to dry land again with little gasps of satisfaction. The appearance, not far from the roadside, of a plant of the panoanus was a sensation. We greeted it with a cry of joyous welcome, as the advanced guard of those tropical glories which previous visitors to this region had glowingly described. The graceful plumy crowns of the cycas, too, were abundant in parts of the bush as we neared Newport, and we revelled in rich anticipation of the wealth to come.
Our conveyance brought us to the steps of the only visible house, a new-looking abode, of the usual country inn type, where, after considerable delay, a rough (very rough) meal was served; chops, coarse and nearly raw, over which the contents of the frying-pan had been liberally bestowed, and a piece of beef, which seemed to have been just introduced to a fire, but not permitted more than a brief acquaintance therewith.
Scott's Hotel from Broadhurst image 1900-1927 106124h Courtesy State Library of NSW.
Henry King Photographs, courtesy National Library of Australia and Pittwater Image Library Mona Vale, c. 1900-1910. Top: Bay view House, Newport NSW. Below: Pittwater from BayView House.
But appetite for even a more luxurious repast was destroyed by the announcement that the engineer of the steamer which we expected to take us on the morrow was very drunk at the other 'hotel' (kept by the opposition driver whom we did not patronise), and that he declared the vessel out of repair and unfit for the voyage, whilst darker rumours were soon afloat that he said she would 'blow up.' One version was that he threatened he would blow her up himself, as 'he could swim if others couldn't.' The roseate hue began to fade from the complexion of our hopes, and we spoke of returning to Manly in the morning; but a promise that the tipsy engineer should be well watched, and kept sober when he became so, allowed us still to dream of pursuing our intended course.
Our rooms, though small and scant of comfort, were clean; and our rest undisturbed by any entomological specimens. After a very early breakfast, we were summoned to go on board the steamer, which lay half a mile off, at a rude sort of landing place near the other 'hotel.' With great difficulty and fatigue we made the descent of the steep bank, some 50 feet in height, by means of logs laid at uncertain distances, making a species of stairway, some steps being thrice the depth of others, and all slippery. The captain — whose civility and kind attention throughout we all gratefully appreciate— assured us that the engineer was 'all right,' so, on arriving on board, we picked the least dirty spots to sit in, the deck being strewn over with coal, and off we steamed down Pittwater, at a very moderate rate, but fast enough for one of the party, who, pencil in hand, took rapid notes, rather than sketches, of the ever-changing and most picturesque headlands and islets as we proceeded. A pretty stiff breeze was blowing, and through the broken waters of Broken Bay the little steamer puffed and groaned and rolled horribly.
Elliot Island was long: the central point in our view, and its isolated position seemed, in our perhaps superficial judgment, to point it out as a suitable spot for the storage of at least a portion of the 900 tons of mischief in the shape of dynamite and powder, the expected explosion of which is now so sorely exercising the fears of many a worthy resident in and near Sydney.
The absence of nearly all evidence of population, so far as we could see, and the barren nature of the land around, seem to render it improbable that even in the future any number of inhabitants would occupy the neighbouring shores to be endangered by the proximity of a magazine on Elliot Island. The discovery that two passengers who had come by the other coach to the other hotel were friends from Melbourne, also, like ourselves, 'on pleasure bent,' was an agreeable surprise, and conversation, in often varying knots of twos and threes, went on with animation. As the channel narrowed, the shores gained in picturesqueness, and we understood the comparisons which have been drawn between the scenery of the Rhine and that of the Hawkesbury, but surely they were made by enthusiastic Australians of die 'Marchioness' persuasion, prepared to 'make believe a great deal' on patriotic grounds !
The towering heights, crowned and bristling with fantastic rocks, resembling in many places the ruined fortresses and castles of the old world, are most striking, and we gazed, in keen enjoyment, as cliff after cliff, and crag on crag appeared. But, alas for the imperfections of humanity ! We found that, after doing some 20 miles of ecstasy, the old story of 'Toujours perdrix!' made itself remembered; for there is, it must be confessed, considerable monotony in the general aspect of the wall-like barriers of cliffed and caverned rocks, although, if considered in detail, nature's inexhaustible variety gives to each some special feature.
The few habitations near the river are of a very humble character, and our expectations of seeing orange groves were but scantly realised. The native fig and a graceful pine in some spots gave a pleasant relief to the too common forms and sombre hues of the universal gum trees, but the prevalent browns and dim olive tints of the general masses were most aesthetic combinations, and ' tropical vegetation' was conspicuously absent. Long before we arrived at Wiseman's Ferry the condition of the delinquent engineer had again become critical, and our apprehensions as to progress and safety anything but pleasant. Our landing was effected in very primitive fashion, no attempt whatever had been made to cut down the bank, or to make the most rudimentary stepping-places, but we all had to scramble and claw our way up, clinging to projecting roots or hanging boughs, as we best might.
A walk of half a mile to the inn followed, and then succeeded luncheon, roughly served, but clean and abundant. On returning to the bank where the boat lay, the engineer was found lying on the deck in a hopeless state of intoxication, inert and insensible, he having, as was ascertained, brought with him a bottle of gin which he had finished. The captain said he did not understand working the engine himself, and that he could not take us further. The result of a council of war held on the spot was the decision that we must perforce return to the inn for the night, and that the captain should obtain the services of a sober engineer he knew of, and to whom he went forthwith; and our party, disgusted and disappointed, crawled wearily back again to the welcome shelter of the inn, and severally disappeared from public view for a 'siesta.' After tea we adjourned to the wide balcony to look at the brightly blazing bush fires on the neighbouring hills.
Next morning, Sunday, after breakfast we again walked down to the boat, and found the difficulties of re-embarkation greatly increased by the low tide. A large space of black mud now intervened between the steep bank and the vessel; over this some bits of firewood had been flung down for us to step upon and only the aid of strong and kindly hands enabled the elders of our party to escape being bogged, but no serious disaster happened, and we went on, under the care of the new sober engineer, the semi-sober one frequently and vainly endeavouring to interview the passengers, who very naturally declined to have aught to do with him. Parts of these higher reaches of the river were beautiful, even though but partially discerned through the thick veil of vapour — a most provokingly opaque combination of smoke and fog — and we were pleased and hopeful until, on reaching the end of our voyage at the landing place at Sackville Reach, it was found that the conveyance which had come to meet us the previous evening, and brought a number of passengers to go down the river, by the steamer that brought us up it, had returned to Windsor with its cargo of deluded tourists; and we were left without any means of proceeding, as arranged, to the railway. Another council was held. One passenger, not of our party, a young man, Winded, to walk the 10 miles; but we were (some of us) not young, and not able to be so independent. To land was simply absurd. We could not sit starving on the shore till on some future day (date uncertain) we might be picked up, and returned to our friends. The inn at Wiseman's ferry seemed our inevitable destination once more, and thither we steered, as vexed, humiliated, and indignant a group of grumblers, justified in the very strongest Utterances of our grumblings, as ever had the cup of pleasure embittered and spoiled by unpardonable negligence in those on whom the arrangements depended.
Sackville Wharf, Hawkesbury River, from Scenes of Hawkesbury River, N.S.W. ca. 1900-1927 Sydney & Ashfield : Broadhurst Post Card Publishers Image No.: a105344, courtesy State Library of NSW.
On arriving at Wiseman's, the new engineer positively refused to take us any further, and we as positively refused to put our lives in peril by going in charge of the drunkard. Meanwhile, dinner was an imperative necessity, and all of the passengers, save two, went up to the inn, a buggy having been sent down to convey them in relays. The two who remained, feeling unequal to any exertion, in their weary and hungry condition (having breakfasted at 7, and it was now nearly 4 p.m.), begged that some food might be sent down to them.
The indefatigable sketcher beguiled the first half-hour with a pencil; then the cravings of Nature conquered even love of art, and eyes were strained in the direction of the inn. Poor Mrs. Bluebeard herself could scarcely have uttered in more plaintive accents, 'Sister Ann! Sister Ann! do you see anybody coming?' than our pair of expectants might have been heard to faintly exclaim in turn : — ' Look ! there's something moving. Is it a man? No, its only a cow.' 'Surely that's a human shape. No, it's a stump.' 'There's another figure ; yes, it really moves this way. Is it carrying anything ?' 'I think I see a bundle— perhaps a plate in a handkerchief!' 'Yes, he sets it down as he climbs die fence.' The excitement grew too intense for words. It teas a man!— he had a bundle! There was a plate inside with chicken and bread upon it! Knife and fork came not; but that chicken's bones were picked with a relish that rarely comes to mortal lips in civilised lands, and those two poor sufferers, restored and comforted, could listen calmly to the plans discussed.
At the price of five guineas extra, the sober engineer undertook to see us back to Newport that night. Our Melbourne friends, fearful of the rough, sea and the lateness of the hour, and being utterly weary of the dirt and discomfort of the wretched little boat, resolved to sleep at the Ferry Inn and hire a vehicle to take them to Parramatta (39 miles) next morning. But our party of five remained on board. The return voyage was slow, and after sundown the seabreeze blew very cold. The wooden gridiron-seats were not couches to satisfy a sybarite, however one might twist and turn and ingeniously feel for a batten softer than the rest. Broken Bay was what an old non-nautical Scotch servant of ours in the old days termed 'vary lumpy,' and the little vessel tossed and rolled amongst the lumps in so unpleasantly active a fashion that, had the exercise continued long, it would have had serious results; but we fixed our gaze either on Venus, brilliant above us, or on the bright red lighthouse star on Barrenjoey, and came safely into smooth water, going, I should think, about two knots an hour. Remembering vividly the terrible steps at the Newport landing, grandmamma had determined to roll a sail about her and lie on the deck till daylight, but the good captain pledged himself that we should be helped safely up, and well redeemed the promise, with the ship's lantern carried in front, to show the 'course' to be steered.
The time being nearly midnight, the people of the inn had been long in bed, when the yelling steam whistle, telling of our approach, aroused them to prepare supper and beds. It would be hardly fair to criticise preparations so hurriedly made, however many their shortcomings. We had this and a half hour's rest, and rose at 5 on Monday morning. It was the opposition inn to which we had come, as being the nearest to the landing, and in the opposition conveyance, which exceeded, in ragged roughness of form and material, any other conveyance we ever beheld, we reached Manly, very thankful that our expedition had safely ended; and resolved to give friendly warning to others: that, until sober and civil persons are employed by the proprietors of all conveyances concerned, and punctuality, safety, and passable comfort assured to passengers, the grand scenery of the Hawkesbury had better remain unvisited. The Tourist. (1882, October 14). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 638. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article161925522
Wiseman's Ferry, N.S.W. circa 1900-19127 - Sydney & Ashfield : Broadhurst Post Card Publishers, Image No.: a106388, courtesy State Library of NSW
This is one of many retorts, over many years, to an Argyle style report:
A Pleasure Trip on the Hawkesbury,
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SYDNEY MAIL.
Sir, — We notice in your issue of the 14th instant, under the nom de plume of 'Grandmamma,' a long and plaintive story, commencing with the flourish of a poetical pen. Judging from, the manner in which this story is told, we should think that 'Grandmamma' possessed one of those super-poetical natures easily disturbed by common occurrences, and certainly unfitted to give to the pleasure-seeking public a fair idea of a trip on the Hawkesbury, under ordinary circumstances. The drunken engineer threatened to blow up the steamer, but 'Grandmamma' was Ices ambitious and contented herself by ' blowing up ' everybody in connection with buggies, coaches, steamers, and hotels en route. Now we have done the Hawkesbury, and although not wishing to assert ...we have, however, succeeded in enjoying ourselves thoroughly. We did not notice the roughness of the vehicles at Manly, neither the necessity to 'scramble' into them. We did not find the slightest cause for nervousness in crossing the lagoon— entre nous,' Grandmamma' must have been asleep when passing the stranded Collaroy, and the awaking -when in the proximity of the pandanus must have been the 'sensation ' referred to.
We happened to stay at the opposition house at Newport, and without delay were served with dinner, consisting of fowls and roast beef, the latter a little too well done, if anything.
Picture of Newport hotel above is dated 10.7.1884 by Robert Hunt and courtesy Pittwater Local studies - Historical Images, Mona Vale Library.
After breakfast next morning, at the very early hour of 6, we made for the steamer, much fearing the descent of the steep bank. It is true we did not find marble steps, but very convenient ones, and were at a loss to know how other than a confirmed cripple could complain of the fatigue and uneasiness of their descent. We found the steamer all that could be desired, even to having carpets spread on the 'gridiron' seats, so particularly noticed by ' Grandmamma,' and the engineer was perfectly sober. After passing through beautiful scenery on either side, we arrived at Wiseman's Ferry — a distance of some 50 miles — at 12.30 p.m. Here we found a substantial stone wharf, upon which the passengers stepped directly from the steamer, even at low tide. As the steamer could not go alongside the hotel, and there were no rails laid for the hotel to run down to the steamer, we were obliged to walk some half-mile to the latter. A well served good, substantial lunch was ready, and we were attended during the repast. Finding also the hotel very clean and comfortable, and being informed by the landlord that he drove folks to or met them by appointment (by telegram, as there is only twice a week delivery of mail) at Windsor gratis, if they wished to stay here a few days, and not a week, as the steamer service would oblige them, we readily took the opportunity, especially when considering the rest of the river was more or less indifferent in respect to scenery. In this we had no cause for regret. We stayed some four days, during which time we had a boat and buggy at our disposal, and were able to make very pleasant excursions inland and down the river. After paying a very moderate reckoning, we were driven into Windsor and thence caught the train to town, having firmly made up our minds that, with your kind permission, we would first challenge ' Grandmamma's ' disparaging comments, and then give friendly warning to others that, if a few days are no object, by far the best (and also the cheapest) way of seeing the Hawkesbury is to adopt our plan and make Wiseman's Ferry the base of operations. — We remain, Sir, yours truly, COMMONPLACE YOUNG MEN.
A Pleasure Trip on the Hawkesbury. (1882, November 4). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 816. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article161926043
A Round Holiday Trip.
By “IBIS”
I had often heard of the beauties of the Hawkesbury, the afore irresistible charms of Kurrajong, so resolving to make a round trip of it, we arranged a party and started one fin morning in spring. I give my experiences with the charges or cost of the flying visit, hoping it will be valuable information to my readers, and that many may be enabled to do as we did in the coming Christmas holidays.
We reached the Royal Hotel, Richmond, at 11 o'clock, where, after being kindly attended to by the excellent lady of the house- we were thankful to lounge on the balcony and rest after the tiring events of the day. ' The next morning at half-past 9 we started by coach, Powell's Royal Mail; for the Kurrajong. This drive takes two hours and is a very pretty, pleasant road. The charge is moderate, about 2s, and the coach stops at Powell’s homestead, where you can have a good dinner, cleanly served and not expensive, and any amount of any fruit in season, English or tropical.
When you reach the heights of the Kurrajong the view of the lowlands is very fine. You see Richmond and Windsor lying little patches in a field; the Nepean winding through the plain like a twist of macaroni — no larger, so you may guess the distance you see Parramatta and the adjacent little settlements, and (the 'Railway Guide' informs me) 'even the locality of the metropolis itself”, for this I cannot vonch, as I did not observe it. As I stood upon the height gazing at the vast stretch of country before me, I was forcibly reminded of the temptation of our Saviour on the Mount. The most beautiful large tree ferns grow at the Kurrajong, and are easily procurable. Also the waratah, or so-called native tulip.
The next day we wandered about Richmond. This is quiet little place, whose-growth appears to have suddenly, stopped some thirty or more years ago. And the present inhabitants seem quite content to leave well alone. Business seems stagnant, and quiet content reigns over all. The park, or cricket and sports ground, lies in the centre of town and is a goodly square of ground, with a large ring like a mammoth circus fenced off from the trees and seats. The ground here is smooth and the grass green. There is not much in Richmond for sightseers to see, for it is built on a portion (very small) of the immense plains. Windsor also'is built on the same a few miles on — three or four, I think; but, then, Windsor is worth anyone's visit, if it is only to see the fast-falling old records of the past days of this colony. Windsor is one of the very oldest settlements, ranking almost with Sydney and Rose Hill, or, as they call-it- now, Parramatta.
We left Richmond for Windsor on Saturday afternoon by the 4 o'clock train,, and reached there a few minutes later. At the station waiting the arrival of the train were two omnibuses; and some safety cabs. I felt we were in a recognised town again, and felt sorry as I looked around and saw the substantial buildings as far up as eye could see. I was somewhat astonished too; for after Richmond with its placid quiet air, which put me in mind of a boy dozing at his work on a Summer's day, or a bullock driver asleep in his dray while the team pulled lazily on, the little town is there, but everything is green — grass even growing in its principal street; it seems dozing under the heat of the summer's sun. Now, Windsor, although so near; is entirely different ; life here strikes one as life — not existence only, but work. The very women who stand at their door to see you pass are busy — either with nursing or sewing. Sister towns, Windsor appears like a hungry ratter looking for his food; Richmond like a pampered overfed pet sleeping on his cushion. As we drove up the street I saw that most of the buildings were old. I felt a feeling akin to awe possess me as we went on. Up the old street on either side the old houses stood, thickly interspersed by the bright fresh ones, some with every pane of glass out and only the sash in the windows, others with the shutters hanging by one hinge, others in order but still unmistakably old. There seemed a forlorn air of neglected old age about them that appealed to the sympathies. They seemed to say, 'See, here we are ! standing still ; and each one us could tell many a tale if we chose.'
The people of to-day vanished, and I saw the inhabitants of the past once more come and go in the streets. The phantom faces looked out of the glassless windows at rue. A detachment of the old 109th marched down the street. I heard a clanging sound. Lo ! a body of convicts, with their grey or yellow dress, with the broad arrow-branded on the back, chained together, moved past with their armed guard. Yet another came on-. This time they took the place of four footed animals, and were drawing up a dray and its load. Now a prancing, champing horse came up the road, its trappings and its rider's dress glittering in the sun. He was an officer of the regiment sitting firmly upright in his saddle in all the pomp and glory of fall regimentals. Oh! people of the past ! Oppressed and oppressors, sinners and stoned against, how paltry and fleeting your sorrows and chains appear now ? 'Twas but a little time even at the best. You have passed away, and the earth knows you no more. Only the effects of your works remain. You have passed, even as we are doing, like a shadowy panorama.
The coach stopped at the Royal Hotel. This is a square brick building, still good, with a verandah round two sides, it ends the street, and was aforetime the officers' head mess-quarters. The old barrack and gaol are just round the corner of the opposite side, and would have been, I conclude, in sight of this house when the officers had it.
Opposite one side of the verandah is a smallish green field, fenced in by a white fence. Here stood the whipping post, the call bell, and the stocks of old memory. The present holders of the hotel remember all three standing, and of being in use.
Just below this is a branch of the river, almost dry as I saw it, edged on each side by large old weeping willows, brilliantly, brightly green. I have never seen such a multiplicity of weeping willows as I saw here, and on the Hawkesbury large graceful trees.
' 'I wonder' I wondered aloud, 'why they planted so many willows ?’
‘Because thems the weeping willows,’ returned a voice at my back. I looked round, and leaning against the inside fence was a little, dried-up looking old man.
'But what good do they do ?' 'Why, they show to the world the sorrows of ‘em as planted ‘em living momenters of tha old times.’
'But they weren't all sorry.’
' Every man Jaek on 'em, mum, frees or lags. Everyone on 'em.'
He said this with an uncompromising firmness that forbade argument.
'Why, the officers who lived here were not sorrowful? What had they to be sorry for ?'
'Most o' them tress were planned by the hoffisers. Out o' that werry door as fine a young gent as ever lived was carried in his coffin wi' a broken heart. Not sorry ! Why, sorrow an' New South Wales camped at the same fire, in them days! '
' So you remember them ? I asked,
'Remember 'em? I should think I did! I onghter when I lived in 'em!’
'I feel much interested in the past, and would be very happy if you would tell me something of it, but not all of suffering.’
‘Why, twas the time of suffering. If that there piece of ground opposite could up and talk it could tell of suffering. Often the flogger has dyed the grass with the blood of man. Talk of suffering, why, if all the tears that were cried in Windsor could flow down together, they’d make as big a flood as ever swamped the town, or overflowed the banks of the Hawkesbury.'
….
Just then the tea bell sounded, and I was reluctantly forced to leave this entertaining fellow. I found out that the coach, for the Hawkesbury left at 7 o’clock on the following morning and if I didn't take that I would have to wait till the following Sabbath morning, as it only went once a week. We decided to leave in the morning. Intimating our desire to our hostess, she informed us that punctually at 7 the following morning we would have to be standing in the verandah, ready to mount, when the coach drove round ; for its driver was a very irrascible man, by the name of Paddy, and known far and wide for the hotness and strength of his temper, having frequently driven off without his passengers, loudly and often expressing his resolve to ‘wait for nobody’, even if this 'nobody should be the Governor of Australia’. At a few minutes before 7 the following morning we were standing on the verandah, awaiting the coach, and certainly lost no time in scrambling up into our seats. This was agreeable to the driver, so he greeted us by glancing round and giving us a grunt. This the hostess of the Hotel informed me, in a whisper, was a great unbending on Paddy's part. We were off, and crossing the bridge passed down-a very pretty road, still plentifully besprinkled with weeping willows. This drive is one of 10 miles, and was done by Paddy in fine style, and well within the two hours. He very politely came and helped us down, carried the box on board the little steamer that waited alongside the bank and returning, escorted us on board.. This unwonted conduct caused the captain of the steamer and his wife to stand aghast; they stared open mouthed at us.
But Paddy soon brought them to their seinses by telling them if they were one minute behind next time next trip they could stay away altogether or let the passengers find some other means of going over the 10 miles to Windsor; they wouldn't, get his car. The captain mildly explained that last trip the engineer had been under the potent power of ardent spirits. ‘I don't care, drunk or sober, if yer not here to the minit you don't get me, so mind’. With this parting 'warning Paddy took himself off.
The little steamer lay against the log that does duty for the quay. There was on board, besides, 'our party.' the captain's wife, the captain, and his one solitary help. This person was A.B., engineer, steward, cook, and first mate rolled into one. Like a generally useful help, he was remarkably dirty and greasy. He was sitting forward with his arms' folded, dozing, when we came on board. He looked out at us with one eye, but immediately closed it, and his head fell on his chest, again. His appearance was very warmly received by one of our party, who fondly hoped there might be some after dregs of drunkenness left in him sufficiently strong to cause him to play some tricks. This wish, I am glad to say, was not gained, as the present party was not the one who had so enlivened the trip of the preceding voyage. He was sleeping off the effects of his alarming carovsal in the little slab hut on the bank, and the captain's lady informed me she had not yet recovered from the frights she had received, nor did she expect to for an indefinable period.
Be it known, the Hawkesbury River is one continuous chain of bends and curve. You appear floating down a beautiful lake all the way; every twenty yards or so you turn a sharp, corner, and, lo! a more beautiful spot than the last. These sharp turns are dangerous to careless steering, and require not only a keen knowledge of the river, but steady steering. If the steamer ran aground, there you might stay for days; for she is the sole disturber of the water, and the banks are but very thinly populated. Consequently the vagaries of this intoxicated engine driver caused considerable alarm to the captain and unbounded fright and horror to the passengers, who were mostly ladies — about 18, I hear — and who got entertained in a manner they did not expect in this their trip up the beautiful Hawkesbury. The captain could not steer and manage the engines, small as the vessel was. The gentlemen there were nervous— besides, they were landsmen in every sense, and understood neither ; besides, the help did not appear very drunk on starting. He had the signs of licker but he had a bottle of brandy by his side, and a frequent application of his lips to this soon began to tell upon him. The first intimation they had of this was when, the captain politely desired him to 'clap on a little more speed.'; He turned it on with such a will that they had sharp work to clear the corner in safety. The captain expostulated, and said 'slower’, whereupon he nearly stopped the engine, and they scarcely moved through the water. By-and-by the captain mildly remarked a little more speed-would meet the wishes of the company better; hearing which the engineer sprung up, saying they didn't know what they wanted. He clapped on full steam, and the little boat positively flew up the river, emitting ever and anon an unearthly screech. This screech soon became a duet, for the fellow seeing the alarm around him, joined his voice to the whistle, and enjoyed amazingly the state of affairs. He kept possession of the engine, and the captain dare not leave the helm.
The ladies began to scream, the scenery was forgotten, terror and alarm took possession of all, and confusion reigned triumphant* ' Ye want speed do ye ? I'll give yon speed; I'll race the whole wurruld. Whoop ! twenty to one on the 'Florrie.' Look out for the banks, Cap'n.. Ha ! ha ! Isa ! be me sowl, but yo'll run uz aground if ye don't look sharp, an' thin tbira lovely crafchers forrard'll git drowned.
Och I sura 'twould amaze yiz,
How one Misther Theseas,
Desarted a. lovely young lady iv ould,
On a dissolute island
All lonely and silent
She sobbed herself sick as she sat in the cowld, '
“Take care Capt'n. Begorrah ye nearly done for us that time ; faith I never thought ye war such a poor steerer.- Its soon ye'll have us all on a “Dissolute island” if ye don’t take care. But I'm not a miserable ould hathin. I'll not desart the ladies. I'll stick be ye darlings.'
Here the drunken fellow gave a long wink and leer at the crowd of terrified females and continued his song. The echos on the many hills around caught up the refrain and threw back the discordant sound in many voices. Presently he got tired and appeared to be dozing, and a consultation was held on board as to the best means of ensuring the safe termination of their journey. It was decided that the man should be taken from his present position and safely bound aft. This was quietly arranged, and two gentlemen were told off to bind the unruly delinquent, and then take his place under the captain's orders. It was a very easy arrangement, but scarcely so easy to do as to say. No sooner did they lay their hands on him than he sprung up and soon laid them both on the deck.
‘Ha! ye divil's imps, would you take the engineer from his duty. What d'ye mane, ye pair iv igaorent savages be layin' yer claws upon rne ? Begorrah ! if ye attempt to get up from there I'll throw you both into the say. Where 'id ye be ye pair of lawyer's clerks — process servers may be for all I know, where 'id ye be, ye miserable haythins if ye tuk me from the works ? Stop yer screetchin ' he added, angrily, turning to the ladies, who were clinging together screaming, ' Ye set iv paycocke, or I'll blow ye all up, every one iv yez. Begorrah! I'll have ye in the nest world afore ye can say an ' Ave' if ye go on screetchin, ye unruly numbers iv society. I think ye've all come on boord drunk!’
Thus the up trip was made, the steamer arriving at the end of her journey a good hour or more late, where the passengers were received by ‘Paddy ' the whip, on the bank. If the waiting had cooled his horses and his feet it had warmed his temper, for he was in a very fiery mood, and made his horses and passengers suffer in consequence. The excursionists, sightseers, and pleasure seekers will not forget their visit to the Hawkesbury in a hurry.
The intoxicated engineer was brought up in Sydney and accused before a jury of his 'countrymen, of riotous behaviour, being drunk and incapable at his post, and of endangering and threatening the lives of 'so many of her Majesty's subjects. But these enlightened body of men found a trace of spite and animosity on the captain's part, and the worthy engineer was discharged, leaving the court with an aggrieved air, Verily, trial by jury is a wondrous and fearful thing. Justice is Hindi and law is as uncertain a thing as a woman's mind, of betting a hundred to one on the favourite.
We all watched the engineer's every move with expectant delight, trusting to see some drunken vagary, but we moved uneventfully down the stream, passing from one bend into, another, each beautiful enough for fairy land. The banks on both sides were almost continuously edged with the graceful weeping willow, their dropping branches trailing in the water.' I have never seen any scenery in Australia to compare in the remotest degree with that of the Hawkesbury. Nor had I connected any such grandeur with the name of Australia. Take it where you will, the river is splendid? On one side a steep hill rising immediately from the water's edge, covered with lovely tree-ferns, cabbage-trees, large trees covered with brilliant scarlet blossoms, another yellow, a third pure white* with here and there a huge grey rock showing. On the opposite bank, about a hundred yards of level ground, upon which a homestead, perhaps, is built, then the ground gently rises into a hill, with more and more behind. Sometimes you get a glimpse far away up a beautiful glen, with little, and large hills rising on every side. This goes on all the way down.
By 1 o'clock we stop at Wiseman's Ferry, and see the telegraph wire and Sydney-road going up the hill. There stands the ruins of the old church, roofless, doorless, and all gone the way all things earthy, excepting the walls, it is built strongly of stone, so possibly the walls will stand till the stones are taken away. Within this church is a vault, also roofless, wherein lie the remains of Mr. and Mrs. Wiseman, and others. No more. The leaden coffins lie on their ..exposed to view and the weather. I wondered if really no person was left with sufficient Interest in these coffins to cover the vault, and so let them rest is peace. As we stopped at the stone wharf that Sabbath day, the place looked one of silence…
Wisemans Ferry, Hawkesbury River, N.S.W. Image No.: c026780132, from Album: Photographs of Sydney and New South Wales, ca.1892-1900 / N.S.W. Government Printer, courtesy State Library of NSW.
Old Church, Wisemans Ferry, Hawkesbury River by John Black Henderson (1827-1918) St. Mary Magdalene's Church (Wisemans Ferry, N.S.W.). Image No.: a1528498, courtesy State Library of NSW.
…was the dip of the' puntsman's oars and a Voice as he sang at his work. I thought it a beautiful picture as I watched his form bend with the strokes, and his punt move on. The horseman got out, and after a friendly leave taking, went up the opposite bank, had the punt cams towards our side. I pictured the man judging partly by the thin quavering voice— a little old shrivelled man bent with his work, but happy and content. I was envying him his disposition, when the punt drew near, and I saw the man was young, with a face swollen and distorted either with drink or insanity. He began cursing and swearing at the unfortunate captain, who really seemed a butt for all their anger, and flew to the rope vowing to cut it adrift as we were Secured a yard or so more to one side. He soon cooled down and began to make himself more pleasant by ridiculing our steamer's build, &c. He came on board, and depreciated every particle of her from the wheel down. This party's name is 'Jack’ and he has plentifully bedaubed the fence with hid name and initials in tarry letters. He became quite friendly with us, and volunteered to show a trial and exhibition of his pulling capabilities This he quickly did by getting into a boat and pulling strongly Up the river, crying out as he did so, 'There's Bush for you. Ha ! Laycock, where are you now? Here's Wiseman's ferry style. Here's muscle. Come on Trickett. Come on, be beaten by Wiseman's ferry. Heap's Hanlan.’ As he swept by he glared at me, inquiring ' what I thought of Wiseman's ferry style.' We all cried out 'lovely.’
This favourable opinion he received pleasantly, and he informed us of the nature of the river, the fish it held, all particulars, saying sharks abounded 16 or 20ft long. I expressed astonishment, when he said he didn't care, he'd swim across the stream at A swinging rate this minute. The arrival of two gentlemen from the Inn put a stop to his executing this feat, and we put off, Jack waving us a good-bye, and assuring us of a welcome on our next visit. As we had no dinner we made a meal of biscuits, oranges and sweets; the captain's wife very kindly gave me an excellent cup of tea, for which I felt grateful. She would take no money for it, but said she intended to begin and have tea, coffee, or chocolate for any who chose to take at so much a cup ; this will prove an additional comfort to this most lovely trip. The elder gentleman got out some sketching materials and began to sketch some of our party, very soon I followed his example and I was, glad to see their neglected blocks and pencils come out and be used. Thus example was better than preaching. The younger fellow-passengers in passing bowed; and we were soon, like most travellers in a small space, upon friendly terms.
Although Wiseman's Ferry looked uneventful quiet and peaceful, it sees some funny scenes at times. For example, a few days before a travelling Bible distributer had come to the river's bank with a buggy full of Bibles. The buggy_ was drawn by a horse that had had no drink for over 24 hours. (This treatment of the poor animal seems at variance with the load on the baggy.; Upon seeing the water it rushed into it and was drowned. The dismay of the owner was extreme, as he saw his possessions swallowed up by the water. He called upon Jack to help, but his ludicrous antics and words caused Jack to be powerless of anything but wonder at himself. The buggy had been rescued, and a few of the Bibles, the missionary had them all spread out on the grass in the orchard of the hotel, in the sun to dry, and was kneeling in the centre, crying and praying, asking the Father to come down and get him out of his trouble. Then he-, would sit down, hugging his knees up to his chin and stare stonily before him, crushed with sorrow. Again he would pray and cry. He diversified this by going- over his books turning and straightening them. He had been like that for the last three days, sitting helplessly crying aloud upon the Lord-to come down and help him, apparently forgetting that God helps those that help themselves. These fellow travellers of ours had subscribed .£2 10s towards his relief and gave it to him, but he still sat like Niobe of old in tears, and refused to be comforted. I have often wondered if he is there still, or if he has procured a horse to take his buggy, Bibles, and self back to Sydney. We still sailed on, the banks on either side still as beautiful; they widened as we reached the mouth, and the foliage upon the hills grew darker.
At last we turned into Broken Bay, and we looked an admiring farewell at the beautiful river behind us.
I had been often wishing to visit the Hawkesbury, for I had heard two opposite opinions as to its claims for beauty: one was the laudatory encomiums of Anthony Trollope ; the other the condemning, disappointed opinion of a whilom friend, also an author and a traveller. But then he very naively remarked that his mode of travelling was rougher than he expected, and the creature comforts offered not up to his expectations or custom. He thus stood a living example that he saw through his palate, and proved the savine true that man may be governed by his stomach. He certainly has more of the animal than spiritual in his composition, else he never could have passed so much of the beautiful in nature without acknowledging its power. We stopped, at the inn at Newport all night; in the morning drove along the lovely road into Manly Beach, passing the poor old Collaroy lying high and dry up on the sands near Narrabeen Lagoon.
The country around was brilliant with the bright hues of wild flowers at this season. The stately cabbage tree waved its fan-like leaves, and a flock of black swans were visible on the waters of the lagoon. A wallaby hopped across the road, much to the children's delight. We took the steamer at Manly, and so home, sunburnt, tired and happy and as Buttercup sang; ' Not a penny in our pockets, la-de-dah !' This trip I would urge upon the notice of youne people, shut up in the city at business all the week, and highly recommend it. You could leave Sydney by the 9 o'clock train for Richmond on Saturday morning j on arriving there take Powell's coach to the Kurragong, dine there ; go on to Windsor by the train, sleep all night there, down the Hawkesbury on Sabbath morning, and back in Sydney on Monday morning by the first boat from Manly in time for office, school, or shop. The probable expense would be between £3 and £4 possibly less. A Round Holiday Trip. (1882, December 30). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108000733
Michael Maher, the former engineer on the steamship Florrie, was summoned, by Mr. C. E. Jeannerett, the owner of the vessel, for having, on the Hawkesbury River, on the 30th September, by drunkeness, so neglected the engine of the vessel as to endanger her. The vessel was at Newport, Pittwater, on the 30th September, having onboard the Hon. W. A. Brodribb and eight other passengers. The speed of the vessel was very irregular, sometimes being very fast, at other times only two or three knots an hour, and occasionally the engine stopped working ; at times there was only 40lb. of steam, and at other times there was 70lb. ; the engineer was observed to frequently go up and down from the engine-room to the deck ; a stoppage was made at Wiseman's Ferry, and as the passengers after going ashore came aboard the engineer was found lying on the deck helplessly drunk. The party were going to Sackville Reach, but a consultation was held, and it was decided not to proceed until the services of another engineer were obtained. The passengers stayed at Wiseman's Ferry that night, and next day an engineer named G. Brooks was engaged to look after the engine of the vessel. The prisoner was committed for trial. Bail was granted, the prisoner being required to enter into his own bond of £80, and to find two sureties in the sum of £40 each. WATER POLICE COURT. (1882, October 10). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13524784
October sittings of the Metropolitan Quarter Sessions commenced yesterday, before Mr. District Court Judge Josephson, Mr. I. J. Healy prosecuted for the Crown. The only case of importance was one in which a man named Michael Maher was charged with endangering the safety of the steamer Florrie of which vessel he was the engineer, and the passengers on board of her, while on a passage from Newport, Pittwater, to Wiseman's Ferry, on the Hawkesbury River. Not withstanding that the evidence was very strong against the defendant, the jury found him not guilty, and he was discharged. NEWS OF THE DAY. (1882, October 31). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 7. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13527380
Death of the Hon. W. A. Brodribb, M.L.C.
[By Telegraph]
From our Correspondent
Sydney. Wednesday.
The Hon. William Adam Brodribb, M.L.C., of New South Wales, is dead, aged 77. The deceased gentleman, who was the son of an English attorney, was born on May 27th, 1809, and came out to the colonies when only 7 years old, arriving at Hobart in 1816. He came to New South Wales in 1836, and at once engaged in squatting pursuits, being one of the pioneers of the Murrumbidgee, establishing a cattle station in the Maneroo district, and subsequently a sheep station near Gundagai. Thence Mr. Brodribb proceeded to the Goulburn and Port Phillip districts, and he there embarked upon an eventful and important exploring expedition in Victoria, which resulted in the opening up of the Gippsland lakes and the formation of the port now known as Port Albert, and named by his party. After many similar exploring expeditions, marred by much difficulties and hardship, Mr. Brodribb returned to New South Wales and again engaged largely in squatting undertakings. He crossed the Australian Alps with a herd of cattle and horses and a flock of sheep, and established a station at Wangaratta, but sold out on the approach of free selectors and went to Victoria, residing at Brighton, for which electorate he was returned to Parliament. He then went home to England, and returning to the colonies established some stations in the Lachlan district, New South Wales, somo of which he retained until his death. During a second visit to England Mr. Brodribb was elected F.R G.S. and F.R.C.I., and proved instrumental in bringing about some important reforms in the wool trade in association with Sir Daniel Cooper. Coming back to the colonies, Mr. Brodribb purchased Buckhurst, near Sydney, in 1876, and remained there till he died. He was called to the Legislative Council of Now South Wales in 1881. Death of the Hon. W. A. Brodribb, M.L.C. (1886, June 2). The Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld. : 1872 - 1947), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article174701998
Alfred Milson's holiday house, Milson Island, Hawkesbury River - Dr R.D. Ward, amateur photographer, on the veranda of Alfred Milson's cottage, Milson Island, Hawkesbury River- Digital Order Number: a282009 from Collection ; Millers Point, Sydney ; Residences at Hunters Hill, Milson Island & Nattai ; Ships, China, Eastern Light, & Parramatta, courtesy State Library of NSW
The Sketcher.
A Trip To Gosford.
Leaving Sydney by the 7.15 a.m. steamer for Manly, one discovers how pleasant and refreshing a trip down the harbour may be on a crisp September morning, and regrets on reaching Manly that there are but some 15 or 20 minutes allowed for satisfying the sharpened appetite before the Pittwater coach gets under way. Bowling round the corner, the team, fresh as two-year-olds, takes us at a merry pace along the level road, past the lagoon, and into the bush, continuing amid rock and scrub that grows so prolifically in this sandy soil. A fairly good road gradually ascends for several, miles, the left being a mass of rough broken country, and the right, some high ground shutting us off from the sea, till presently we come almost on to the sea-shore, and every hill we top gives as a view of the continuous bay and headland coast-line stretching ahead for miles.
After some six or seven miles, descending a sharp decline, we almost ran on top of the Collaroy, high and dry on the beach. The bizarre object startles one as it is so absurdly out of place; but the Company's balance sheet still reckons her an asset.
The road seems to end here, and the coach enters upon a level strip of sward overawed by a straight range of steep, rocky hills, with a cabbage tree on top, limned against the sky. Here, meeting the fresh north wind that lifts the horses' manes, the leaders put their heads down and stretched themselves for a canter. I had been especially directed to select this route on account of the beauty of its scenery, so closely resembling, at times, that of the Rhine. But although one part of Europe may frequently recall another to the recollection, yet in Australia nature has assumed such distinct characteristics, that all comparison is rendered out of the question, nor could any effort of the imagination convert the old stone ruins on the rise at the end of the flat into the remains of some castle of romance. We could not elevate oneself above the conviction it was but a settler's or free selector's home-stead. Recently the land about here was sold, fetching prices up to £10 for quarter-acre blocks.
A little further on we entered Narrabeen Lagoon, when the water came over the bottom of the coach. For three quarters of a mile the coach struggled along through marsh and water, not daring to stop lest the wheels sink in the sand. However, it is understood the Government will call for tenders next month for the construction of the bridge. Coming out of Narrabeen the coach passes round a finely formed hill abundantly clothed with tree and fern, including quantities of the Burrawang species. On the left arises a cleared eminence with two red cattle; beyond, a half-cleared flat, with a mass of low gnarled gum trees in front, through which the road leads ; on the right are some stretches of white sand, with a reddish-brown bluff rising above, and splashes of spray dashing up against it ; a few light clouds above break the sunshine. It is a good specimen of natural Australian landscape, and these are to the picture the finishing touches of the artist's master hand. As a centrepiece of such a scene, none but a painter knows the value of a lumbering coach and four, axle deep in water, slowly dragging its way along.
From Narrabeen to Pittwater is a succession of hills and gullies, the views, and retrospect from each becoming finer and finer. The aspect of the coast, which is now continuously in sight, suggests somewhat the snapped off red clayey cliffs of Devon ; while two or three miles beyond are seen the deep gorges among the hills that hide the lake of Pittwater. From a distance, the rugged boldness of the hills bear many of the characteristics of mountainous parts of the Black Forest, although when close the vegetation and the general appearance of 'unfinishedness' effectually dispels the illusion.
Presently we approach a promontory with rounded top and sides, smooth shaven like a lawn, and interspersed with scrub like the soft buxom furze of a Cornish hillside. It is remarkable besides for its massiveness, and one feels on reaching the summit as though he had overcome one of the obstacles of life. At length, reaching the eminence above Pittwater, we take our last view of the ocean with its half score of white sails dotting its wide surface in an aimless sort of way, and call each other's attention to the dignity waves can assume as they come rolling in with a slow lazy sweep and curl and break on the curved sandy stretch that connects the protruding frowning headlands. Turning inland, we enter, as it were, the top rim of the basin of the lake, and suddenly come upon the loveliest spot between Sydney and Brisbane Water. On the left one looks down a gorge ever so steep down : down through the stems of several species of gum, ironbark, mahogany, forestoak, turpentine, and cabbage tree, their tops netted into a dense mass of foliage, their bases buried in a profuse overgrowth of fern, bracken, clematis, and the graceful burrawang, a species of palm-fern, while in the mid-distance between the tree stems one can trace the stream at the bottom. The scene is rich with the luxuriant beauty of a New Zealand pass. Coming round the shoulder of the hill, openings in the trees betray glimpses of the deep blue waters of the lake, while the scene stretches away beyond to the high enclosing hills, in all their deep colouring, like one of Conrad Martens' pictures.
A few minutes more, and the coach stops at the Newport Hotel, having accomplished the 14 miles in about two hours. At the waterside awaits the steamer Florrie. A little to the right, in a small bay, is another wharf, with a large house close by approaching completion, and destined for a boarding-house. As we steam out, we wonder which way we shall take, for the lake is completely landlocked by huge bluffs rearing themselves up above us like so many 'Ball's Heads,' and suffering rough jagged gorges to penetrate their way deep into their mass. In several places where the nature of the ground allows settlement, cottages and gardens and orchards have sprang up, and their beauty of situation renders one envious of the owners.
Bending to the right, we pass between Lord Loftus Point and Scotland Island, while far ahead, near the heads of Broken Bay, is seen the noble island, in shape like a couchant lion guarding the entrance as he faces it. Pittwater forms a magnificent harbour, and, undoubtedly, in due time its waves will reflect the lights of a grand city reared upon its banks. Its entrance, some three miles wide, is wondrously safe. Its waters are deep, absolutely sheltered from every quarter; and as to its size, would float the navies of the world. Pittwater is the southern arm of the estuary, Brisbane Water the northern, while between, straight in from the Heads, stretches westward the grand outlet of the Hawkesbury River, between two enormous banks. Few rivers can match its magnificence of debouchure, as the hills boldly approaching the ocean in all their pride of strength majestically deliver up the waters confided to their charge. At the Barrenjoey lighthouse, whence also a cable is laid to Brisbane Water, we come in sight of the entrance to the harbour, and as we cross have a full view on our left of the estuary of the Hawkesbury.
The entrance, Hawkesbury River, from Pt. Wagstaffe, Woy Woy from Scenes of Hawkesbury River, N.S.W. ca. 1900-1927 Sydney & Ashfield : Broadhurst Post Card Publishers Image No.: a105348, courtesy State Library of NSW.
Passing in front of the island, just under the lion's nose as it were, we approach the bar that spoils Brisbane Water as a seaport. It is thought that possibly by blowing up the half tide rocks by dynamite, as was done in Hobson's Bay, the unimpeded rush of water would carry away the sand bar. When the wind is blowing from the south-west the heavy rollers break right on to the bar, rendering it impassable. Before crossing one admires the singularly graceful contour of the high range of ground shutting us of from the ocean, while on the left the eye commands the still higher range that enclose the valley of Brisbane Water, and tempered as to its massiveness by that same deep colouring resting upon its sides that seems to belong to all the Hawkesbury scenery. Safely across the bar we begin to wind about with the river which is much too tortuous, for though numerous huts and humpies perch themselves upon the shore, yet the scene grows monotonous. One misses the rich fields and cornlands, the pasturages, and terraced vineyards that border the (in comparison) tame rivers of Europe. The hills and valleys in their form are beautiful enough, it is the same-ness of the vegetation, the everlasting, unchanging gumtree that tires the eye.
Mr. Rock Davis' building yard at Blackwall is the only place of interest passed on the way. One boat in the stream is near completion, and another is in process of building. Mr. Davis has been very successful with his boats, which, besides for their soundness and durability of make, are much admired for their grace-ful lines. He uses nothing but local timber. Several of the ferryboats in Sydney harbour come from his yard, and orders are tendered far in excess of his power to fulfil them. it is not very long since that he launched his first steamer as an experiment, and her arrival in Sydney at once gained a reputation for this yard, and at the same time proved the adaptability of the Brisbane Water timber for shipbuilding Just as one begins to grow weary and very hungry, our little craft emerges into the Broadwater, at whose far end, under the shadow of the hills, is discerned the little town of Gosford. Presently, on a point to our left, is noticed the first patch of cultivation. On the right, opposite East Gosford is Green Point, which was lately sold in allotments at such high prices. Drawing near Gosford, after some 25 minutes' run across the Broadwater, one's attention is attracted by the parsonage, with four Norfolk pines, admirably situated on a point. Farther round, lying between the hills that rise to a great height, on either side stretches back from the water the town of Gosford. Still to the left, at the extremity of the Broadwater, begins Nerara Creek, extending in a north-westerly direction. On the right, through East Gosford, runs Erina Creek, watering the magnificently wooded tracts lying between Gosford and the sea.
Gosford, situated on the bottom slopes of a hill, consists of one street, in which are located the substantial post and telegraph offices, the Police Court, the Mercantile Bank, three hotels (one being a fine two-storey building), some five or six small stores, and a score or so of dwellings. High up on the hill is the Public school, with an average attendance of about 80. The surveyed line of railway crosses the Broadwater, and passes up the valley some 200 yards from the main street Brisbane Water was but little known until the proposal to construct this railway to Newcastle gave it a prominence it never hitherto enjoyed, although being one of the oldest settled districts. But since being brought thus into notice it has been largely visited by interested speculators and business people, who have returned convinced that Brisbane Water will become something of a winter and spring resort, which, added to the fact of its possessing- many undeveloped capabilities, and being, more over, situated between Sydney and Newcastle, will render it by the time the railway is opened an important town.
Compared with other parts of the colony, Brisbane Water exhibits a lack of energy and enterprise. Its inhabitants, able to earn a fair and regular livelihood by wood getting, have allowed every other industry to fall into abeyance. Even the gardens and orchards, so well known in former years, are now unfenced and uncared for. Even the very homes of the wood-getters are, in most cases, without an enclosure, or, at the most, they grow but a few vegetables to suffice for their own needs. Yet the soil and the climate are well adapted for cultivation and growth, and no place enjoys so mild a winter. But to the visitor the dominant notion of the inhabitants appears to be that it is easier to let the timber grow of its own accord, and content themselves with cutting it when it has reached the requisite size. And these carters and timber-getters do not even attempt to grow their own horse- fodder, preferring to obtain it all from Sydney. To one who knew the place 40 years ago it is saddening to see its retrogression, and naturally one begins to seek the cause. In the early days many of* the best families of the colony either lived there, or owned property. Its natural beauty, fertility of soil, nearness to Sydney, and its accessibility (for in those days a short trip by sea was preferable to one in bullock waggons) rendered it desirable for settlement, and accordingly Brisbane Water acquired a reputation. But the first settlers soon found that timber getting was far more profitable than agriculture, hence, except in a few clearings about each homestead, no attempt was made to cultivate.
The value of the timber trade may be inferred from the fact that from Erina Estate alone timber to the value of £4000 was sold in one year, and from that day to the present timber getters have been, and are still cutting timber on the same land. But in process of time, as the country became more opened up, and sheep farming took the premier position in the colony's industries, then one by one the old families left Brisbane Water, leaving none behind but the actual wood-getters, lime-burners, fishermen, and their purveyors. And thus remained the district for more than a generation. Bat now a new era has begun. At the prospect of a railway it has bestirred itself. Trade has revived. One steamer for passengers alone makes three trips a week, and two steamers direct make each two trips ; a bank has established a branch, and stores and dwellings are in course of erection. Even the church shared in the general improvement, a bazaar having been held to provide funds for its repair, when £106 were realised. As a final evidence of a better state of affairs, the people themselves admit there is now more money than there used to be. To one who knows anything of country towns this confession means much.
As to the salubrity of the climate, there can be no question. There is no doctor there. Yet, although the population is considerable, the last resident doctor declared he owed his subsistence to surgical practice. The appearance of the school children is a living proof of the truth of the doctor's assertion. Sitting on the upper verandah of Campbell's Hotel, one begins by admiring the magnificent hill uptowering in front, hiding the westering sun, and ends with an inexpressible longing to climb to the top, a desire which has to remain unsatisfied till the next day. It is useful to go early, for the cool of the morning is absolutely necessary to enable one to tackle the climb. One has positively to cling to the hillside, but it is an exquisite hill, wooded with tall, straight trees, and carpeted with fern, and capped with rock, the very top being a broad, flat rock, charming for a picnic ground, superb hi its loftiness of site., exquisite as to view. Following a first instinct, one seats himself on the edge of the rock and hangs one's legs over. It is a sheer drop of 20 feet to a broken mass of gray lichen and moss grown rocks, lying cosily in a bed of soft green fern. On every ledge rock-lilies have found a foothold. The treetops are 20 or 30 feet below, and one looks over all to the south over the Broadwater, four miles long, with Gosford below on the left, and the tongue of land running far out into the lake, dividing East and West Gosford. Away over the Broadwater, one looks down between the line of hills that opens for the vision, over the flat scrubby land at the river mouth, over the blue waters of Broken Bay itself; one looks, Broken Bay with its lion-like island in its midst more conspicuous now than ever, across the bay with its single white sails, across to the sandy beaches of Barrenjoey, and to the high lands beyond that finally stop the view. Down at my feet lay a true Australian scene of untouched forest, and to the right, round the hill, sweep the graceful windings of Nerara Creek, across whose mouth runs a line of white posts marking the site of the railway bridge. This hill is the great feature of Gosford, being admirable hi every respect, and a remark in its praise always elicits a gratified smile. On the opposite side of the town, delaying the sunrise, is another range of hills even more lofty, but not so fine, either in form, view, or vegetation. West Gosford lies in the valley between. Leaving West Gosford, a walk of a mile or so from the Post Office brings us to semi-deserted, slowly dying East Gosford, once the chief town, where is the church, and formerly the steamer wharf. The church had been built in one town and the parsonage in the other, in order to allay their rivalries.
In East Gosford the structures are of wood ; but in the other town nearly all the buildings are solidly built of stone. Stone houses in a country town always impress a visitor. They take away the 'mush-room' aspect that distinguishes but too many country places, and evidence, on the part of the inhabitants, a faith in their town. Crossing over Erina Creek by the old punt, still ferried by the same old blind puntman that took me across 20 years ago, we made the best of our way over a horribly bad road (which, however, Government is about to reconstruct) for a couple of miles through low-lying land, bordering the creek, heavily timbered, and with a strong under growth. Having reached a considerable clearing, we are suddenly astonished to behold a ketch, apparently entangled amongst the scrub. The existence of a vessel in the bush reminds one of scenes in Holland, where one is so often startled to see lumbering Dutch crafts in full sail in the middle of a field. Frequently a sail is the only indication one has of the proximity of a canal. At the wharfs of Erina and Wyoming, on Nerara Creek, the ketches chiefly load with timber, laths, &c. The present activity in the building trades in Sydney renders lath-getting unusually lucrative, enabling a couple of boys to earn as much as £3 per week. Bundles of laths, delivered at the wharfs, are sold for 13s. ; formerly they fetched from 6s., and men were glad to get that sum. Beyond the wharf a short distance, ascending a slight eminence, we come to the site where formerly stood Erina homestead (the residence of Henry Donnison, Esq.).
The half-destroyed orchard and the homes of three or four woodgetters in the vicinity are all that remain to mark where once stood a huge and handsome dwelling, with a village comprising artisans of several trades. A ride hence in an easterly direction for some four miles brings us to the coast. Several clearings are passed on the way, in most of which still stand the lemon hedges and the fruit trees that were once a source of considerable profit, but all now apparently forsaken for the timber trade. At first sight one is led to deplore the utter decadence of energy ; but what I myself saw, and the testimony of the people themselves, proved to me that timber getting in this locality is a substantial and remunerative industry, nor does there appear to be any indication of its languishing. Years ago one heard of most of the heavy timber being cut, but the trade is actually on the in-crease. The soil produces wonderful trees, tail, straight, and solid like a ship's mast, and trees that five years ago were reckoned but saplings are now being cut for beams and rafters— aye, even for the piles for the Circular Quay extensions. The supply between Gosford and Tuggarah appears to be practically inexhaustible. The country is undulating and varying in its character from stony ridges and clayey flats to the rich loam of the brush or scrub land. The chief wood obtained from the higher ground is red and blue gum, red and white mahogany, turpentine, iron bark, stringy bark, blackbut, and forest oak. From the brush land, whence come the finest, logs, are derived the coachwood, maidens' brush, and ash. The brushwood is very beautiful. It is a dense jungle, semi-tropical in its character, and wrapped in impenetrable shade. Roads run hither and hither through its midst like avenues cut out of the foliage ; the gaunt grim stems of mighty trees rear themselves out of the undergrowth; here and there giant logs, moss grown, peep from out the screening bush ; clustering vines and clambering clematis run from shrub to shrub; the lawyer vine weaves everywhere an almost impassable net ; Deep, mysterious fissures to the right and left reveal the wonders of vegetation. This is the very home of the fauna tribe, which seems to have attained its perfection, and the groupings of fernery present a positive artistic arrangement. The tree-fern, and also the much-sought-after Bangalow species grow in abundance. In the profusion of wild beauty and overbrimming luxuriance it seems to laugh at the puny attempts of art, and in the dark rivulets that are no sooner seen than lost again, one thinks he has found the dryad of the scene.
Ascending again, we presently pass two prosperous looking cottages, and come within sight of Tarrigal lagoon, then the ocean beyond, and some half-mile distant, on a' high bluff, the residence of Thomas Davis, Esq. Below his house, in a little bight well sheltered from every wind by Point Willoughby, axe the sawmills, building yards, and wharfs. The mill is not at present working, on account of new machinery being erected ; but the good order of the different departments, the constantly arriving teams, and the business-like aspect of the establishment greatly impress a stranger with the importance of the timber trade. D uring the whole of Mr. Davis's experience, but one mishap has occurred, when the schooner Wonga Wonga was blown on to the beach and wrecked, and yet this occurred through an accident that might have been easily prevented. The spot where stands Mr. Davis's house one would suppose to have been chosen from the whole coast for beauty. It commands a view of sea and coast line, over the fields on the hillside, over the lagoons, and the deep woods, away to the hills inland. Returning, we took a road that led us past the lagoon and Womberall Lake, meeting the Tuggarah Beach road. This led us through more magnificently timbered country, even richer in variety, and taking us likewise through much land adapted for agricultural settlement. It has been so long-supposed that coal was to be found in this district that Mr. Davis put down a bore at Tarrigal to prospect. He sank as deep as the old-fashioned bore would allow, and obtained such encouraging indications that he hopes to have it properly tested. The value of such a discovery, close to a place of shipment, is beyond estimate. A ride of some seven miles northward from Gosford, past Wyoming, along the surveyed railway track, brings us to Blue Gum Flat, another settlement that is developing in activity. At every turn of the road one encounters horse and bullock teams, for the timber on the flats beyond Blue Gum Flat is considered some of the finest that Brisbane Water produces. The road from Gosford, as might be supposed from the travelling of these teams, is execrable, although in many parts truly romantic. There is one grand avenue where the trees on either hand rear themselves straight up 100 to 150 feet, hiding their stems for 30 feet in brush, and burying their roots in fern. As we rode slowly along, the forest seemed to acquire that majesty that the American poet Bryant loved to tell of in his own great forests. It is grander even than the noble cuttings in the Black Forest. In the gladness of the morn, every bird seemed to have given itself to song, and ever and anon above the rest was heard the clear rare note of the tiny bell-bird. The road is hilly, but the view circumscribed by reason of the bordering growth of wood. In this direction is Wyong, where was recently found three distinct layers of coal de-posits, and for the purpose of working which Mr. Allison is reported to have gone to England to float a company. Not the least pleasant time in Gosford is the evening, when the environing hills early hide the sun, and lengthen out the gloaming. To drift about on the lake is full of that charm that has awakened poetry in every age, and as the hills draw down their shadows for the night, the masses of dark outline towering above the glimmer of the lake recall the solemn stillness of night upon Lake Como where one feels with unaccountable awe, that it is but the darkness that veils the presence of the Spirit that rules the destiny of life. SYDNEY. The Sketcher. (1882, September 30). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 542. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article161926095